Columbia  (Llnitocr£itp  lectured 


PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

GEORGE  BLUMENTHAL  FOUNDATION 
1912 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

SALES  AGENTS 

NEW  YORK  : 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER   , 
30-32  WEST  27TH  STREET 

LONDON  : 

HENRY  FROWDE 
AMEN  CORNER,  E.G. 

TORONTO : 

HENRY  FROWDE 

25  RICHMOND  STREET,  W. 


COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

HIS  PERMANENT  INFLUENCE 
ON  AMERICAN  INSTITUTIONS 


BY 


JOHN  SHARP  WILLIAMS 

UNITED   STATEC  SENATOR  JTBOM   Ml-JbldSIPPI 


JQeto  Jiorfc 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1913 

All  rights  reserved 


REPLACING  a  7 1  o  4  a, 

•;f  .-Copyright,  m3 

By  CoLThteA  tlNivSROITT  PRESS 
Set  up  <m<!  efcclrctyp^d. ,  |?v\bliahed '  Aprlij,  1913 


THE  Niw  ERA  PRINTING  COMPANY 
LANCASTER.  PA. 


DEDICATED 

TO 

MY  WIFE'S  MOTHER-IN-LAW 


M112157 


PREFACE 

I  WROTE  and  delivered  these  lectures  not  only  in 
great  haste,  but  under  great  pressure.  At  the  tune  the 
promise  to  deliver  them  was  made,  Congress  was 
expected  to  adjourn  about  the  middle  of  June.  It 
adjourned  about  the  first  of  September.  This  sub 
tracted  two  and  one-half  months  from  my  time. 
I  deemed  it  my  duty  later  to  devote  two  and  one-half 
weeks  of  the  time  remaining  to  campaign  field  work  in 
behalf  of  the  election  to  the  Presidency  of  one  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  successors,  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson. 
The  natural  inference  from  all  this  is  that  the  work 
may,  and  probably  does,  contain  errors. 

I  have  sought  as  much  as  possible  to  bring  the  past 
bodily  into  the  present  by  quotations  from  dead  actors. 
The  reader  will  find  a  very  free  use  of  italics.  It  is 
not  good  taste;  but  the  hearer  was  thereby  spared 
much  hearing,  and  the  reader  will  be  spared  much 
reading.  Italicizing  the  salient  point  of  a  quotation 
is  my  way  of  saving  words  of  comment,  which  other 
wise  would  be  necessary. 

No  man  can  entirely  divorce  himself  from  his  likings 
and  dislikings.  I  have  tried  to  do  it;  but  I  have  for 
long  loved  world  democracy  and  its  apostles,  and 
disliked  special  privilege  and  its  beneficiaries  and 
upholders. 

There  is  no  American  about  whom  more  has  been 
written  than  Mr.  Jefferson.  In  addition  to  the  stand- 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

ard  histories  of  the  United  States  and  what  they  record 
concerning  him,  there  is  a  distinct  Jeffersonian  bibli 
ography.  The  list  below,  under  the  heading  "  Bibli 
ography/'  contains  articles,  pamphlets,  and  books, 
especially  appertaining  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  which  I  have 
read  either  recently,  or  in  times  past. 

JOHN  SHARP  WILLIAMS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTORY 1 

II.  JEFFERSON  THE  REVOLUTIONIST 

1.  In  America 7 

2.  In  France 56 

III.  JEFFERSON  THE  DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE 

INSTITUTIONS 

1.  A  State  Made  Over 67 

2.  An  Apostle  of  Local  Self -Government .     96 

IV.  JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  . . .  107 
V.  JEFFERSON  THE  DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL 

INSTITUTIONS 

Stemming  the  Counter-Revolution 141 

VI.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON  AS  PRESI 
DENT 

1.  "My  Passion  is  Peace" 196 

2.  "An  Empire  for  Liberty" 201 

3.  Jeffersonian  Simplicity 225 

Some  Minor  Matters 239 

Summing  up 242 

VII.  JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE  ON  FREEDOM  OF 

RELIGION  IN  AMERICA 244 

VIII.  JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE    ON    OUR    EDU 
CATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS 266 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 308 

INDEX..  .  313 


IX 


PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
ON  AMERICAN  INSTITUTIONS 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

IN  an  article  written  by  Andrew  D.  White,  entitled, 
" Jefferson  and  Slavery,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
January,  1862,  he  says  that  "in  the  architecture"  of 
our  democratic  republic,  we  find  "the  agency  mainly 
of  six  men." 

First,  three  men  who  "did  most  to  found  the  Re 
public:  and  these  three  men  are  Washington,  Adams 
and  Jefferson." 

"Secondly,  two  men  who"  .  .  .  "did  most  to  build 
the  Republic:  and  these  two  men  are  Jefferson  and 
Hamilton." 

"  Third,  three  men,  who,  having  a  clear  theory  in  their 
heads,  and  a  deep  conviction  in  their  hearts  .  .  .  did 
most  to  brace  the  Republic:  and  these  three  men  are 
Franklin,  Jefferson  and  Channing." 

He  continues :  — 

"So,  rising  above  the  dust  raised  in  our  old  quarrels,  and  taking 
a  broad  view  of  this  Democracy,  we  see  Jefferson  placed  firmly  in 
each  of  these  groups. 

2  1 


2\    \FERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

,VK  we,  search  in  Jefferson's  writings  and  in  the  contemporary 
yeW'r'ds;  to:  a>cert?ai}  what  that  power  was  which  won  him  these 
positions,  we  find  that  it  was  no  personal  skill  in  cajoling  friends  or 
scaring  enemies.  .  .  . 

"The  real  secret  of  his  power  was,  first  of  all,  that  Jefferson  saw 
infinitely  deeper  into  the  principles  of  the  rising  democracy,  and 
infinitely  farther  into  its  future  working,  than  any  other  man  of  his 
time.  Those  who  earnestly  read  him  will  often  halt  astounded  at 
proofs  of  a  foresight  in  him  almost  miraculous." 

The  subject  prescribed  for  me  in  these  lectures  is 
the    permanent    influence   of    Thomas    Jefferson  on 
American  institutions.     Who  can  say,  with  assurance, 
what  feature  in  a  nation's  institutions  is  permanent, 
until  its  life  has  been  lived  out  to  its  end?    To  delineate 
the  birth  principles  of  the  American  confederation  is 
easy,  but  to  tell  how  far  these  birth  principles  are 
permanently  life  principles,  is  not  so.    What  Solon  said 
to  Croesus  applies.    What  features  seemingly  essential 
to  our  institutions  at  any  one  particular  time,  are  really 
so,  is  a  question  whose  answer  is  colored  by  the  time  at 
which  the  question  is  asked.     If  such  a  question  had 
been  asked  during  and  immediately  after  the  Revo 
lution,  when  the  love  of  freedom  was  at  high  tide,  the 
answer  would  have  been  one  thing;  if  after  Shay's 
Rebellion  in  Massachusetts  and  the  general  anarchic 
condition,   leading  to   a  great   and  general  reaction 
against  the  principles  of  the  American  Revolution,  it 
would  have  been  another.    If  asked  once  more,  after 
four  years  of  Jefferson's  administration  had  allayed  the 
fear  of  democracy  and  of  popular  rule,  the  reply  would 
have  been  still  different.     Then  put  yourselves  back  in 
the  period  of  1850-60,  and  again  to  the  year  1866,  and 
yet  again  to  1876,  and  get  a  different  reply  in  each  case. 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

Imagine  the  question  asked  and  answered  during 
reconstruction  days,  and  again  later  on  after  sensible 
men  had  concluded  with  Tourgee,  who  called  himself 
"One  of  the  Fools,"  that  reconstruction  had  been  "A 
Fool's  Errand."  Again  how  essentially  different  the 
replies  would  be  before  and  after  we  had  "gone  a 
world-powering"  in  the  Philippines;  —  before,  when  all 
were  agreed  that  we  wanted  no  entanglements  with  the 
old  world  by  interference,  or  possession;  that  we  de 
sired  only  "friendly  commerce  with  all  and  entangling 
alliances  with  none,"  and  after,  when  we  stood  amazed 
to  find  that  somehow  we  had  sillily  drifted  into  becom 
ing  an  Asiatic  power,  with  Asiatic  territorial  and  polit 
ical  interests  and  anxieties. 

Not  knowing  what  all  this  has  made  pregnant  in  the 
womb  of  the  future,  which  of  us  can  assert  that  any 
particular  feature  of  our  system  now  deemed  funda 
mental,  characteristic,  permanent,  shall  be  so  ten  years 
from  now  —  whether,  in  any  particular  case,  "having 
the  wolf  by  the  ears,"  we  shall  or  shall  not,  or  can  or 
can  not,  "turn  him  loose"?  All  of  which  concludes  in 
this;  that  for  the  purpose  of  the  inquiry  of  these 
lectures,  that  is  permanent  which  the  inquirer  in  his 
horoscoping  deems  permanent,  and,  as  the  wish  is  so 
much  the  father  of  the  thought,  it  will  be  largely  that 
which  he  wishes  and  prays  and  hopes  is  so. 

Next,  in  determining  the  scope  of  our  work  in  these 
lectures:  what  are  the  "institutions"  of  a  people?  Are 
they  simply  constitutional  forms?  If  so,  these  United 
States  and  Mexico  and  the  Central  American  republics 
have  the  same  institutions;  and  England  and  Italy  and 
Germany,  all  being  "limited  monarchies"  with  so-called 


4          PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"  responsible  parliamentary  ministries,"  have  the  same 
institutions.  Can  either  of  these  statements  be  true? 
No.  Why  not?  Because  just  as  a  man  has  an  out 
ward  body  and  an  inner  informing  and  directing  soul, 
so  a  nation  has  a  body-politic,  about  which  we  hear  so 
much,  and  a  soul-politic,  about  which  we  hear  little,  or 
nothing,  under  that  name.  U  Esprit  des  Lois  —  the 
spirit  of  the  institution  —  that  is,  the  thing  vitalizing 
the  words  of  constitutions  and  statutes  —  must  be  taken 
into  consideration.  Buckle's  unfinished  political  novum 
organum  —  his  " History  of  Civilization'7  —  is  only  a 
historical  analysis  of  the  evolutionary  development  of 
the  soul-politic  of  the  peoples. 

All  considered,  I  shall  then  treat  the  subject  in  this 
full  sense,  and  I  shall  exhibit  the  permanent,  or  thought- 
to-be-permanent,  influence  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  not  only 
on  American  visible  institutions,  but  on  American 
vitalizing  thought  and  practice. 

But  again,  how  can  one  tell  a  man's  political  influence, 
without  knowing  at  least  enough  of  his  heredity  and 
environment  to  explain  his  words,  theories,  and  acts  in 
the  light  of  them? 

No  man  can  escape  altogether  the  impress  of  the 
form  and  color  of  his  time  and  place,  nor  altogether 
ignore  the  blood  which  courses  in  his  veins.  Yet  for 
all  this,  I  shall  have  neither  time  nor  space.  The  man, 
Jefferson,  in  his  lovableness  of  disposition,  his  feminine 
cleanness  of  speech  and  thought  and  life,  his  almost 
infinite  versatility,  his  noble  optimism,  his  world- 
vision,  I  would  literally  love  to  describe.  But  all  that 
I  must  ruthlessly  forego,  save  for  a  sidelight  here  and 
there,  while  correcting  some  errors  of  others. 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

What  was  his  environment?  First,  he  was  a 
Virginian  and  a  planter.  Secondly,  he  was  a  frontiers 
man,  because  Albemarle  County,  when  he  was  growing 
up,  was  still  a  frontier  country.  The  county  settled 
very  rapidly,  but  still,  during  the  formative  period  of 
Thomas  Jefferson's  life,  his  environment  was  a  frontier 
environment.  The  life  he  lived  later  was  that  of  an 
independent  country  gentleman.  Thus  from  both 
sources  individuality  was  the  first  and  necessary 
product  of  his  life  and  of  the  lives  of  those  about  him; 
its  chief  and  indispensable  lesson  being  a  reliance  on 
one's  own  intellect,  initiative,  and  resources;  from 
which  proceeded  an  absolute  contempt  for  authority 
and  precedent  —  merely  as  such. 

Much  has  been  said  about  Jefferson's  being  influenced 
by  Rousseau's  "Contrat  Social."  The  idea  of  a  social 
contract  being  at  the  base  of  government  —  a  compact 
of  the  people  amongst  themselves  —  was  ingrained  in 
his  thought  and  in  the  thought  of  all  those  around  him, 
but  it  was  not  from  reading.  Jefferson  never  read 
Rousseau  until  long  after  his  own  political  opinions 
had  been  formed.  Indeed  if  he  read  him  at  all,  I  can 
find  no  trace  of  it.  On  the  frontier  people  got  this  idea 
of  government  resting  on  compact,  because  it  was  a  fact 
of  their  lives.  First  one  settler,  then  half  a  dozen, 
then  a  score  would  move  into  a  neighborhood  beyond 
the  support  of  old  settlements,  and  then  naturally  the 
neighbors  would  some  day  gather,  and  after  they  had 
chatted  about  the  crops,  about  getting  a  teacher  if 
they  could,  and  about  a  place  for  the  itinerant  preacher 
to  "hold  forth"  when  he  came,  they  would  take  up  the 
question  of  the  establishment  of  a  practical  local 


6          PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

government;  the  selection  of  somebody  before  whom 
neighborhood  differences  should  be  argued  and  by 
whom  they  should  be  settled  —  by  analogy  of  English 
law,  a  "  justice  of  the  peace"  —  the  selection  of  some 
body  who  should  pursue  horse  thieves,  or  other  crimi 
nals,  arrest  and  bring  them  in  for  trial  —  by  analogy 
of  English  law,  a  " constable"  —  the  selection  of 
somebody  to  correspond  with  the  legislature  to  secure 
the  organization  of  a  new  county,  so  that  they  might 
have  a  local  board  to  lay  out  roads,  designate  ferries, 
etc.,  and  so  that  they  might  have  representation  in  the 
State  legislative  body;  but  preceding  all,  where  and 
how  and  under  what  leadership  they  should  meet  for 
defence  against  the  Indians,  when  needful.  All  of 
these  things  were  done  in  America  in  each  neighborhood, 
by  a  " compact"  of  the  people  with  one  another.  This 
each  frontiersman's  son  learned,  with  his  other  A  B  Cs, 
on  his  father's  knee,  as  a  part  of  the  usual  political 
experience  of  the  American  people. 


CHAPTER  II 
JEFFERSON  THE  REVOLUTIONIST 

1.      IN   AMERICA 

I  TAKE  it  that  the  influence  of  our  independence  has 
permanently  jiff ected_gi^r  institutions^  and  that  our 
revolutionaiy^rinciples  are  the  informing  spirilT"oT 
them;  therefore,_that  Jefferson's  acts  ^nd -words  ^jjjjj. 
revolutionist^come^within  the,  smpe  nfjjvia  inquiry. 

Jefferson  became  of  age  in  1764.  Before  that,  he 
had  become  attached  to  the  cause  of  American  freedom. 
Soon,  nobody  was  more  decided,  none  more  radical,  in 
opposition  to  the  British  policy  towards  the  colonies 
than  he. 

In  a  letter  to  William  Wirt,  with  his  good  sense  and 
canny  tact,  he  says:  " Sensible,  however,  of  the  im 
portance  of  unanimity  among  our  constituents,  although 
we  often  wished  to  go  faster,  we  slackened  our  pace  that 
our  less  ardent  colleagues  might  keep  up  with  us;  and 
they,  on  their  part,  differing  nothing  from  us  in  prin 
ciple,  quickened  their  gait  somewhat  beyond  that 
which  their  prudence  might  of  itself  have  advised,  and 
thus  consolidated  the  phalanx,  which  breasted  the 
power  of  Britain.  By  this  harmony  of  the  bold  with 
the  cautious,  we  advanced  with  our  constituents  in 
undivided  mass  and  with  fewer  examples"  (in  Virginia) 
"of  separation  than  perhaps  existed  in  any  other  part  of 
the  Union." 

7 


8         PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

In  his  biography  he  uses  this  language,  concerning 
the  origin  of  the  committees  of  correspondence:  — 

"We  were  all  sensible  that  the  most  urgent  of  all  measures  was 
that  of  coming  to  an  understanding  with  all  the  other  colonies  to 
consider  the  British  claims  as  a  common  cause  to  all  and  to  produce 
a  unity  of  action;  and  for  this  purpose  that  a  committee  of  corre 
spondence  in  each  colony  would  be  the  best  instrument  for  inter 
communication:  and  that  their  first  measure  would  probably  be  to 
propose  a  meeting  of  deputies  for  every  colony,  at  some  central 
place,  who  should  be  charged  with  the  direction  of  measures  which 
should  be  taken  by  all.  I,  therefore,  drew  up  the  resolutions  which 
may  be  seen  in  Wirt,  page  67." 

The  resolutions  to  which  he  refers  designate  a 
standing  committee  of  intercolonial  correspondence 
and  inquiry. 

There  has  been  some  contention  about  which  colony 
first  organized  the  committees  of  correspondence. 
Bancroft  has  it  about  right  when  he  says,  "Massa 
chusetts  organized  a  province,  Virginia  promoted  a 
confederacy.  Were  the  several  committees  but  to 
come  together,  the  world  would  see  an  American 
Congress." 

Senator  Lodge,  in  the  History  of  Nations  Series, 
Volume  23,  is  one  of  the  few  historians  who  gives  due 
weight  to  the  committees  of  correspondence  and 
safety,  as  provisional  governments.  He  calls  them 
very  aptly,  "a  system  of  revolutionary  machinery." 

Much  of  this  committee  government  was  secret  and 
constitutes  lost  pages  of  our  history. 

The  real  truth  is  that  a  Union  for  the  colonies  was 
effected  with  the  inauguration  of  the  intercolonial 
correspondence  committees.  They  constituted  as 
purely  a  revolutionary  group  of  bodies  as  did  the  com- 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  9 

mittees  of  public  safety  and  the  other  committees,  formed 
partially  in  imitation  of  them,  during  the  French  revo 
lutionary  period.  It  was  the  American  committees  of 
safety,  which  suggested  an  example  for  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan  in  the  South  later  in  its  history  —  both  acting 
with  a  perfect  secrecy,  which  thus  far  even  has  never 
been  fully  unveiled.  By  virtue  of  this  self-constituted 
authority,  men  threw  the  tea  overboard  in  Boston 
harbor  and  persuaded,  coerced,  or  intimidated  con 
signees  in  other  American  ports  to  refuse  to  receive 
any  such  consignments, 

A  more  perfectly  enigmatic  Ku  Klux  announcement 
was  never  made  than  that  of  John  Rowe,  when  —  the 
people  of  Boston  having  exhausted  all  peaceful  and 
legal  means  to  prevent  the  Governor  from  granting 
a  pass,  which  would  enable  the  ship  laden  with  tea 
to  clear  the  harbor  under  the  guns  of  the  castle  —  he 
asked:  "Who  knows  how  tea  will  mingle  with  salt 
water?"  Then,  Fiske  recites  that,  "amidst  profound 
stillness,"  Samuel  Adams  arose  and  said,  quietly,  but 
distinctly,  "This  meeting  can  do  nothing  more  to  save 
the  country."  This  was  the  signal  upon  which  the 
Massachusetts  committees  ceased  by  public  utterance 
to  direct  the  movement  and  when,  in  some  agreed  way, 
there  came  about  the  secret  movement  by  disguised 
men.  The  "Mohawk  Indians,"  hastening  to  the 
wharf,  taking  possession  of  the  ship,  unloaded  its  cargo 
into  the  sea. 

Too  much  importance  cannot  be  attached  to  the 
Revolutionary  committees  of  correspondence;  first,  for 
making  and  keeping  a  united  front  between  the  towns 
in  Massachusetts,  upon  the  motion  of  Samuel  Adams, 


10        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

and  afterwards,  for  securing  this  same  harmony  of 
action  and  unity  of  purpose  between  the  several  colonies, 
upon  the  suggestion  of  Jefferson's  resolution  adopted 
by  the  band  of  patriots  met  in  the  Apollo  Room  in 
the  Raleigh  Tavern  at  Williamsburg.  During  the 
interregnum  between  recognized  British  authority  and 
the  newly  organized  American  authority,  these  com 
mittees  constituted  the  real  government.  Through 
them  the  American  people  learned,  in  nearly  all  of  the 
colonies,  the  lesson  of  the  capacity  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves  directly,  even  without  regularly 
constituted  over-lords  or  governors.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  Daniel  Leonard,  the  great  Tory  and  British  local 
leader,  said  of  these  committees,  "This  is  the  foulest, 
subtlest,  and  most  venomous  serpent  ever  issued  from 
the  egg  of  sedition.  It  is  the  source  of  the  rebellion. 
I  saw  the  small  seed  when  it  was  planted;  it  was  a  grain 
of  mustard.  I  have  watched  the  plant  until  it  has  be 
come  a  tree." 

The  resolution  to  make  these  committees  of  corre 
spondence  intercolonial  was,  at  Jefferson's  request, 
offered  in  the  Assembly  by  Dabney  Carr,  the  friend 
and  later  the  brother-in-law  of  Jefferson,  with  whom 
Jefferson  had  so  often  sat  upon  the  "  Little  Mountain," 
in  closest  political  and  intellectual  communion,  in  a 
sweetness  of  friendship  seldom  rivaled  between  men. 

Now  comes  another  meeting  of  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Burgesses  at  the  Apollo  Room  in  the  Raleigh 
Tavern  and  the  formation  of  another  association, 
entered  into  by  all  of  them,  declaring  it  unpatriotic  to 
buy  British  East  Indian  tea  or  other  commodities;  that 
"an  attack  upon  one  of  the  colonies  was  an  attack  upon 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  11 

all,"  and  directing  the  Corresponding  Committee  of 
the  State  to  devise  with  the  other  committees  of  the 
other  colonies  a  general  annual  congress,  and  at  the 
same  time  calling  a  Virginia  convention  to  be  held  at 
Williamsburg  on  August  1st,  to  appoint  delegates  to 
this  Congress.  Thus  was  formally  conceived  our 
Union,  destined  to  grow  and  strengthen,  in  due  process 
of  development,  until  it  should  become  indissoluble. 

Massachusetts,  in  this  crisis  of  her  history,  would 
probably  have  stood  alone  but  for  the  committees  of 
correspondence  —  really  revolutionary  committees  — 
which  were  keeping  in  elbow  touch  with  one  another 
from  what  is  now  Vermont  down  to  what  is  now 
Georgia. 

The  action  of  the  Government  in  closing  the  port  of 
Boston  constituted  a  declaration  of  war  upon  all 
America,  although  perhaps  no  man  in  the  British  min 
istry,  or  in  the  confidence  of  the  King,  so  understood  it. 

It  is  wonderful  how  everything  goes  back  to  this 
Apollo  Room  in  the  Raleigh  Tavern,  where  Jefferson 
was  one  of  the  ruling  spirits.  For  example,  the  move 
ment  towards  a  Continental  Congress  came  first  from 
New  York.  Coming  from  that  State,  only  partially 
loyal  to  the  American  cause  —  perhaps  not  at  that 
time  loyal  by  a  majority  vote  —  it  would  have  died 
still-born,  had  it  not  been  taken  up  by  the  members  of 
the  Legislature  of  Virginia  —  prorogued  and  ad 
journed —  but  still  sitting  in  solemn  voluntary  ses 
sion  —  in  the  Raleigh  Tavern. 

It_was  on  the  14th  dav  of  Mavr  177fi;  i-.Tmt.  flip,  splf- 
reconstituted  Lflpns1fl.tnrq  of — Virgiqjfl  unanimously 

"voted  these  instructions  to  its  delegates:  "To  propose 


12       PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 


ing  by  that  respectable 
lto    declaretbfi. 


Unite.dIColQi5es  free,  and  independent  States/ 

to  meaurestQ_iorin 


for  th 


j:ef1^^  Here  is  the 

rerm  of  ourjduaT^ 

and    JTit^rjtamatter,  state    in    domestic 


n 

In  all  your  study  of  American  history,  keep 
this  italicized  proviso  in  your  minds.  It  will  explain 
much. 

Revolutionary  intimidation,  it  must  be  confessed, 
reigned  foot-loose  throughout  America.  The  bold, 
patriotic  and  liberty-loving  were  not  everywhere  in  a 
majority.  The  conditions  were  such,  as  Fiske  says, 
that  "  neither  councillors,  nor  judges,  neither  sheriffs 
nor  jurymen,  could  be  found  to  serve  under  the  royal 
commission"  to  "  execute  the  Regulating  Act  in  Massa 
chusetts."  He  further  adds  that  for  nine  months  this 
state  of  seeming  anarchy  continued,  and  that  "yet 
the  affairs  of  every-day  life  had  gone  on  without  friction 
or  disturbance." 

This  too  recalls  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South  in 
'74  and  75,  when,  first  in  one  place  and  then  in  another, 
all  carpet-bag  authority  had  been  intimidated  into 
flight  or  quiescence,  and  yet  afterwards  peace  and  law 
and  order  reigned.  Both  conditions,  as  well  as  what 
happened  in  the  early  history  of  California,  are  high 
tributes  to  the  capacity  of  the  American  people  for 
self-government  . 

The  instructions  of  Albemarle  County  to  Mr.  Thomas 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  13 

y 

Jefferson  and  Mr.  John  Walker,  their  two  members  of 
the  House  of  Burgesses  and  their  two  deputies  to  the 
convention,  are  worth  regarding,  especially  as  from  the 
style  and  the  surroundings  they  were  evidently  written 
by  Mr.  Jefferson.  They  are  as  follows :  —  * 

f         "Resolved,  That  the  several  inhabitants  of  the  several  States  of       \ 
British  America  are  subject  to  the  laws  which  they  adopted  at  their  \ 

first  settlement,  and  to  such  others  as  have  been  since  made  by  their  \ 

respective  Legislatures,  duly  constituted  and  appointed  with  their  own 
consent.  That  no  other  Legislature  whatever  can  rightly  exercise  I 

authority  over  them,  and  that  these  privileges  they  hold  as  common          I 
rights  of  mankind,  confirmed  by  political  constitutions  they  have         / 
respectfully  assumed,  and  also  by  several  charters  of  compact  from       / 
e  Crown."  ^ 

Notice  he  goes  back  to  the  "  common  rights  of 
mankind,"  which  are  "  confirmed"  —  not  created  — 
by  charters  and  "political  constitutions." 

The  language,  "these  privileges  they  hold  as  common 
rights  of  mankind,"  is,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  the  first 
basing  of  the  American  cause  upon  "the  rights  of  man," 
rather  than  upon  the  inherited  legal  rights  of  English 
men.  This  was  to  grow  into  an  assertion  of  the  inherent 
right  of  self-government  vested  in  every  community,  and 
by  logical  consequence,  into  the  claim  of  right  upon 
the  part  of  any  community  to  throw  off  any  govern 
ment,  which,  in  its  opinion,  had  ceased  to  subserve  the 
purpose  of  all  government,  to  wit:  securing  and  main 
taining  the  happiness  and  the  liberties  of  those  governed. 

Jefferson  in  his  "  Memoir  "  says,  that  these  were  his 
views  from  the  very  first  dawn  of  the  dispute,  but  that 
he  had  then  "never  been  able  to  get  anyone  to  agree 
with  him  except  Mr.  Wythe." 


14        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Patrick  Henry,  the  controlling  genius  in  Hanover 
County,  and  probably  the  dictator  of  its  resolutions, 
did  not  go  so  far.  We  find  these  resolutions  asserting 
only  "the  privileges  and  immunities  of  their  fellow- 
subjects  in  England,"  etc. 

The  resolutions  from  Fairfax  County,  where  George 
Washington  presided  over  the  meeting,  used  language 
not  so  strong  as  that  of  Hanover. 

The  Virginia  Convention  met  at  the  prescribed  time. 
Jefferson  was  prevented  by  illness  from  attending.  He 
had  prepared,  to  be  offered  to  the  Convention,  a  draft 
of  instructions  to  the  Virginia  members  of  Congress. 
He  had  forwarded  a  copy  to  Peyton  Randolph  and  one 
to  Henry.  The  fate  of  these  resolutions  we  will  give 
in  Mr.  Jefferson's  own  language:  — 

"They  were  written  in  haste,  with  some  uncertainties  and  in 
accuracies  about  historical  facts,  which  I  neglected  at  the  moment, 
because  I  thought  they  could  be  readily  corrected  at  the  convention. 
.  .  .  Peyton  Randolph  informed  the  convention  that  he  had  re 
ceived  such  a  paper  from  a  member,  prevented  by  sickness  from  offer 
ing  it  in  his  place,  and  he  laid  it  on  the  table  for  perusal.  It  was  read 
generally  by  the  members,  approved  by  many,  though  thought  too 
bold  for  the  present  state  of  things;  but  they  printed  it  in  pamphlet 
form,  under  the  title  of  'A  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British 
America.'  It  found  its  way  to  England  and  was  taken  up  by  the 
opposition,  interpolated  a  little  by  Mr.  Burke,  so  as  to  make  it 
answer  opposition  purposes"  (in  England)  "and  in  that  form  ran 
rapidly  through  several  editions.  ...  I  was  informed  afterwards 
by  Peyton  Randolph,  that  it  had  procured  me  the  honor  of  having 
my  name  inserted  in  a  long  list  of  proscriptions,  enrolled  in  a  bill 
of  attainder,  which  was  commenced  in  one  of  the  Houses  of  Parlia 
ment,  but  was  suppressed  in  embryo  by  the  hasty  step  of  events, 
which  warned  them  to  be  a  little  cautious.  .  .  .  Tamer  sentiments 
were  preferred,  and,  I  believe,  wisely  preferred;  the  leap  I  proposed 
being  too  long,  as  yet,  for  the  mass  of  our  citizens.  The  distance 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  15 

between  these  and  the  instructions  actually  adopted,  is  of  some 
curiosity,  however,  and  it  shows  the  inequality  of  pace  with  which 
we  moved,  and  the  prudence  required  to  keep  front  and  rear  to 
gether.  My  creed  had  been  formed  on  unsheathing  the  sword  at 
Lexington."  (Lexington  here  is  a  lapsits  linguae,  or  "plumae"; 
Boston  is  meant.) 

This  "  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British  Amer 
ica"  became  the  mine  into  which  many  delved  for  ideas 
and  phrases  in  presenting  the  American  side  of  the 
dispute. 

The  Virginia  State  " Convention"  is  worthy  of  note 
in  this;  that  it  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  first  of  those 
peculiarly  characteristic  American  institutions.  A 
" Convention"  with  us  is  considered  superior  to  an 
ordinary  representative  assembly;  so  much  so,  that  a 
state  convention  can  adopt  a  new  constitution,  without 
even  referring  it  back  to  the  people  for  their  approval, 
as  has  been  done  in  my  State  two  or  three  times.  It  is 
looked  upon  as  "the  body  of  the  people  representatively 
assembled"  and  possesses  full  powers  for  state  purposes, 
as  a  national  convention  would  have  for  the  purpose  of 
completely  altering  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

Jefferson's  argument  in  the  "Summary  View"  is  based 
very  strongly  upon  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  expatri 
ation.  Hence  his  constant  insistence  through  life  on 
that  right.  It  was,  according  to  his  view,  at  the  very 
root  of  our  contention  in  the  Revolution.  The  right 
of  expatriation  was  not  then  admitted  by  any  nation 
of  the  earth.  It  is  not  admitted  by  Russia  at  all,  nor 
fully  by  Prussia,  nor  Austria,  to  this  good  day,  and  was 
denied  by  Great  Britain  up  to  and  even  after  the  War 
of  1812.  It  has  not  been  very  long  since  we  abrogated 


16        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

a  treaty  with  Russia,  growing  out  of  differences  between 
that  Government  and  ours,  based  upon  antagonistic 
views  with  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  indefeasible 
allegiance.  The  "  Summary  View/'  however,  takes  the 
position  that  the  American  colonies  expatriated  them 
selves  as  fully  as  did  the  Angles  and  the  Saxons  from 
their  old  country,  when  they  settled  in  England,  and 
that  except  for  their  voluntary  adhesion  to  the  same 
crown,  the  independence  between  the  two  countries 
would  have  been  as  complete,  as  that  between  England 
and  the  old  home  of  the  race. 

Jefferson  had  gone  back  to  the  Greek  Republican 
conception  of  the  status  of  colonies. 

The  assertion  is  made  that  Great  Britain  had  ren 
dered  no  assistance  to  the  colonists  until  after  they  had 
established  themselves  on  a  firm  and  permanent 
footing,  and  had,  therefore,  become  valuable  as  custo 
mers  to  the  mother  country;  that  we  had  submitted  to 
trade  regulations  in  our  own  interest,  as  long  as  they 
were  not  too  restrictive  to  our  own  rights  and  were 
advantageous  to  the  mother  country,  but  that  these 
had  now  become  unbearable  and  too  oppressive  to  be 
further  permitted. 

From  the  same  instrument,  I  shall  quote  another 
sentence  characteristically  Jeffersonian,  because  it  is  a 
forerunner  of  what  will  later  appear  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence:  — 

f  "Scarcely  have  our  minds  been  able  to  emerge  from  the  aston- 
/  ishment  into  which  one  stroke  of  Parliamentary  thunder  has  involved 
/  us,  before  another,  more  heavy  and  more  alarming,  is  fallen  on  us. 
1  Single  acts  of  tyranny  may  be  ascribed  to  the  accidental  opinion 
V  of  a  day;  but  a  series  of  oppressions,  begun  at  a  distinguished  period 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  17 


and  pursued  unalterably  through  every  change  of  ministers 
plainly  prove  a  deliberate,  systematical  plan  of  reducing  us 
slavery." 


,  too       | 
is  to       I 


It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  "  Summary  View 
of  the  Rights  of  British  America "  contained  most  of 
the  essential  ideas  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  antedated  that  document  by  nearly  two  years;  it 
complained  of  the  same  wrongs  and  set  forth  the  same 
inherent  and  natural  rights,  and,  in  some  respects,  was 
more  advanced  in  its  views  than  the  Declaration  itself. 

It  was  scarcely  a  subject  of  wonder  that  it  led  to  Mr. 
Jefferson's  being  placed  upon  the  proscribed  list.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  student  of  Jefferson's  life  will  find  him 
always  in  advance,  even  of  the  progressive  wing  of  the 
party  with  which  he  is  cooperating,  and  will  also  find 
an  illustration  of  his  readiness  to  yield  and  concede 
non-essentials  in  order  that  all  might  move  along 
together. 

One  thing  is  most  remarkable;  the  "  Summary  View  " 
goes  out  of  its  way  to  refer  justifyingly  to  the  execution 
of  Charles  I.  This  was  done  in  a  paper  proposed  to  be 
adopted  by  a  Virginia  convention,  where  men  sat  whose 
forefathers  had  resisted  in  the  cause  of  the  Stuart  the 
utmost  power  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  until,  indeed,  a 
formal  treaty  had  been  entered  into  between  the  great 
Lord  Protector  and  the  Old  Dominion.  In  that  body 
sat  men,  whose  forefathers  had  been  killed  in  the  King's 
service,  or  had  left  England  for  Virginia  rather  than 
submit  to  the  rule  of  the  "  Commonwealth." 

A  distinguished  Ex-President  speaks  of  Mr.  Jefferson 
as  being  "timid"  and  "vacillating!"     He  was  more 
nearly  rash. 
3 


18         PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

The  reader  of  the  "  Summary  View "  will  note  the 
ground  upon  which  Jefferson  places  his  protest  against 
closing  the  port  of  Boston.  It  is  the  punishment  of 
the  many  innocent  for  the  acts  of  the  few  guilty. 

In  this  connection,  it  might  be  recalled  that  certain 
people  in  a  Southern  town,  having  signed  a  petition  to 
a  negro  postmistress  requesting  her  resignation,  which 
was  regarded  by  the  Administration  as  a  species  of 
"  intimidation,"  the  post  office  was  closed,  by  order  of  an 
American  President,  and  all  of  the  people  in  the  town 
and  adjacent  territory  put  to  the  inconvenience  and 
expense  of  getting  their  mail  from  a  place  a  dozen  miles 
or  more  away.  The  Federal  Court  was  open,  with 
Federal  judge,  marshal,  grand  juries  and  petty  juries, 
and  the  federal  law  could  have  been  vindicated  by  an 
exercise  of  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  court.  Even  a 
little  instance  like  this  shows  the  importance  of  keeping 
general  principles  of  justice  and  right  government 
always  in  view,  and  illustrates  the  truth  of  the  time- 
honored  maxim  that  "  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of 
liberty." 

Nobody  in  Virginia,  or  South  Carolina,  or  New  York, 
would  have  objected,  or  would  have  had  any  right  to 
object,  to  the  punishment  by  law  of  the  men  who 
unlawfully  seized  and  threw  the  tea  into  the  harbor, 
but  the  high-handed  punishment  of  the  whole  people 
showed  an  absolute  disregard  of  accepted  rules  of 
civilized  government,  and  "an  intention  not  to  punish 
an  act,  but  an  opinion."  Still  more  tyrannical  was  the 
act  of  Parliament  providing  for  the  trial  in  England 
for  certain  classes  of  offenders.  The  plea  in  both 
cases  and  in  the  Southern  post  office  case,  that  "the 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  19 

juries  will  not  convict, "  is  one  to  which  tyrants  resort, 
but  one  which  ought  never  to  be  entertained  in  a  free 
country. 

It  is  only  needful  to  add  that  the  ideas  expressed  in  the 
"  Summary  View,"  in  the  latter  part  of  which  Jefferson 
adjures  George  III,  "no  longer  to  persevere  in  sacrificing 
the  rights  of  one  part  of  the  empire  to  the  inordinate 
desires  of  another,  but  to  deal  out  to  all  equal  and 
impartial  right,"  and  to  "let  no  act  be  passed  by  one 
legislature  which  may  infringe  upon  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  another,"  and  reminds  him  that,  "this  is 
the  important  post  in  which  fortune  has  placed  you, 
holding  the  balance  of  a  great,  if  a  well-poised  empire," 
now  constitutes  the  principle  underlying  the  practice 
of  the  British  empire  towards  her  white  colonies. 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  the  mother 
country  are  virtually  held  together  only  by  the  common 
kingship  —  the  sole  tie  binding  Virginia  and  England 
under  Jefferson's  theory.  Each  has  its  own  admittedly 
independent  legislative  assembly,  and  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain  would  no  more  think  of  legislating  for 
Canada,  in  any  really  Canadian  concern,  than  the 
Canadian  Parliament  would  think  of  legislating  for 
England  or  Wales.  If  the  British  Empire  has  become 
"a  well-poised  empire,"  with  reciprocal  advantages  for 
all  its  connections,  it  has  been  because  of  the  wise 
adoption  of  this  salutary  rule. 

Again  Jefferson  says  to  the  King:  "Accept  of  every 
commercial  preference  it  is  within  our  power  to  give" 
etc.  Today,  if  Canada,  or  any  of  the  British  colonies 
give  trade  preferences  to  Great  Britain,  it  is  because 
they  choose  to  give  them,  and  not  because  of  any  ac- 


20        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

knowledged  right  of  the  mother  country  to  demand 
them,  under  the  guise  of  regulating  commerce.  Thus 
this  doctrine,  which  was  thought  to  be  too  bold  for 
adoption  by  the  Virginia  convention,  even  in  the 
throes  of  a  great  revolution,  is  become  the  accepted 
doctrine  of  the  " great"  and  " well-poised "  empire,  to 
whose  king  the  propositions  were  addressed  in  reproof. 

Jefferson  was  elected  Chairman  of  the  Albemarle 
County  Committee  of  Safety  —  such  being,  I  presume, 
the  confidence  of  the  boys,  who  had  been  raised  with 
him,  in  his  " timidity"  and  "vacillation!" 

Girardin,  in  his  "History  of  Virginia,"  page  6,  says, 
that  "the  operations  of  these  committees  not  being 
definite,  were  almost  unlimited."  Perhaps  from  them 
and  Jefferson's  recollection  of  them,  the  revolutionary 
committee  system  in  France  may  have  had  its  birth, 
though,  of  course,  no  man,  who  had  experienced  com 
mittee  government  among  the  free,  politically-trained, 
and  comparatively  equal  and  well-to-do  inhabitants  of 
America,  could  have  foreseen  its  destructiveness  and 
folly  in  France. 

Girardin  says  of  these  committees  that  they  ex 
amined  the  books  of  merchants  to  see  if  they  imported 
the  articles  which  were  forbidden,  or  sold  at  higher 
prices  than  they  should;  that  they  examined  all  sus 
pected  persons,  disarmed,  fined,  and  punished  them, 
and  that,  when  necessary,  they  enlisted  trained  officers 
and  armed  independent  companies — (the  "minute 
men"  of  whom  you  read)  — in  each  county,  and  that 
from  their  decision  there  was  no  appeal.  Randall  says 
that  "it  would  be  difficult  to  say  where  the  power  of 
these  local  tribunals  stopped,  except  that  they  did  not 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  21 

exercise  the  death  penalty  and  the  power  to  confiscate 
estates,  which  last  powers  were  retained  by  the  con 
ventions  of  the  colonies." 

Jefferson  was,  throughout  his  life,  radical  in  ends  and 
conservative  in  means.  It  is  not  surprising,  then,  to 
find  that  the  Committee  of  Safety  in  Albemarle  County 
was  less  proscriptive  in  its  conduct  —  more  cautious 
and  wise  —  than  almost  anywhere  else. 

Then  Mr.  Jefferson  was  chosen  a  member  of  the 
Continental  Congress. 

Meanwhile,  Lord  North's  "  Conciliatory  Proposal," 
as  it  was  called,  had  been  received  in  the  colonies  and 
it  was  necessary  that  Virginia,  among  other  colonies, 
should  make  reply.  Jefferson  says :  - 

"The  tenor  of  this  proposition,  being  generally  known,  as  having 
been  addressed  to  all  the  Governors,  Peyton  Randolph  was  anxious 
that  the  answer  of  our  Assembly,  likely  to  be  the  first,  should  har 
monize  with  what  he  knew  to  be  the  sentiments  and  wishes  of  the 
body  he  had  recently  left.  He  feared  that  Mr.  Nicholas,  whose 
mind  was  not  yet  up  to  the  mark  of  the  times,  would  undertake 
the  answer,  and,  therefore,  pressed  me  to  prepare  it.  I  did  so,  and 
with  his  aid,  carried  it  through  the  House,  with  long  and  doubtful 
scruples  from  Mr.  Nicholas  and  James  Mercer,  and  a  dash  of  cold 
water  on  it  here  and  there,  enfeebling  it  somewhat,  but  finally  with 
unanimity,  or  a  vote  approaching  it.'? 

The  salient  points  of  this  document  were,  that  the 
British  Parliament,  not  being  an  American  legislative 
assembly,  had  no  right  to  interfere  with  civil  govern 
ment  in  any  of  the  colonies;  that  Lord  North's  propo 
sition  involved  the  idea  that  the  colonies,  "in  order  to 
secure  exemption  from  an  unjust  tax,  must  saddle 
themselves  with  a  self-inflicted  perpetual  tax,"  "ade 
quate  to  the  expectations  and  subject  to  the  disposal 


22        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  Parliament  alone;"  that  "many  of  the  American 
grievances  previously  stated  were  taken  no  note  of  in 
the  proposal,  because  the  ministry  were  then  making 
disposition  to  invade  the  colonies;"  that  the  ministry 
did  not  propose  to  lay  open  to  them  "a  free  trade  with 
all  the  world;"  and  significantly  that  the  proposition 
made  to  Virginia  involved  the  interest  of  all  the  other 
colonies,  and  that  all  the  colonies  were  represented  hi  a 
general  congress,  and  that  "no  partial  obligation  should 
produce  a  disunion  from  the  common  cause;"  that  Vir 
ginia  considered  herself  in  honor  bound  to  "share  what 
ever  general  fate  might  betide  her  sister  colonies"  Thus 
Virginia  acknowledged  and  emphasized  our  Union. 

The  conclusion  was  the  expression  of  a  final  deter 
mination  to  leave  the  question  to  the  disposition  of  the 
general  Congress,  before  whom  the  House  of  Burgesses 
would  lay  the  papers.  Then  speaking  for  Virginia 
alone  occurs  this  language: 

"For  ourselves,  we  have  exhausted  every  mode  of  application, 
which  our  invention  could  suggest  as  proper  and  promising.  We 
have  decently  remonstrated  with  Parliament  —  they  have  added 
new  injuries  to  the  old;  we  have  wearied  our  king  with  supplica 
tions —  he  has  not  dared  to  answer  us;  we  have  appealed  to  the 
native  honor  and  justice  of  the  British  nation  —  their  efforts  in 
our  behalf  have  hitherto  been  ineffectual;  what  then  remains  to  be 
done?  That  we  commit  our  injuries  to  the  even-handed  justice 
of  that  Being,  who  doeth  no  wrong,  earnestly  beseeching  Him  to 
illuminate  the  councils  and  prosper  the  endeavors  of  those  to  whom 
America  hath  confided  her  hopes,  that  through  their  wise  discretion 
we  may  again  see  reunited  the  blessings  of  liberty,  prosperity  and 
harmony  with  Great  Britain." 

A  similar  arraignment  of  the  justice  of  the  British 
people,  in  the  original  draft  of  the  Declaration  of 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  23 

Independence,  was  stricken  out  by  the  Continental 
Congress! 

Jefferson  carried  Virginia's  reply  to  Lord  North  with 
him  to  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  where  we  now 
take  up  the  thread  of  our  story. 

John  Adams  afterwards  said  that,  although  Jefferson 
was  not  a  public  speaker,  owing  to  his  voice  (or  rather 
lack  of  voice),  he  (Adams)  found  that,  " though  a  silent 
member  of  Congress,  he  was  so  prompt,  frank,  explicit 
and  decisive  upon  committees  and  in  conversation  (not 
even  Samuel  Adams  was  more  so),  that  he  soon  seized 
upon  my  heart." 

This  language  of  a  contemporary  is  recommended 
to  the  perusal  of  so-called  historians,  rough-riding  over 
facts.  He  never  "vacillated,"  nor  was  "timid,"  nor 
showed  "a  sluggish  mind"  in  "the  times  that  tried 
men's  souls,"  nor  in  the  face  of  any  crisis  at  any  time, 
though  in  non-essentials  he  was  always  the  most 
yielding  of  all  sweet  natures. 

Virginia's  answer  to  Lord  North's  "Conciliatory 
Proposal,"  as  drawn  by  Jefferson,  "met  the  views  of 
the  more  advanced  members  of  the  Whig  party  in 
Congress,"  and  "the  importance  of  it  was  fully  meas 
ured  by  all,"  because,  if  adopted,  it  would  have  the 
effect  of  "closing  the  door  to  argument  with  the  mother 
country."  It  was  adopted  by  Congress.  It  left  us 
two  alternatives;  a  successful  redress  of  grievances  by 
arms  on  the  one  hand,  or  subjugation  on  the  other. 

Five  days  after  he  took  his  seat  in  Congress,  Jefferson 
was  placed  on  an  existing  committee  to  make  a  state 
ment,  or  declaration,  of  "the  causes  of  the  colonies 
taking  up  arms."  The  committee  had  already  made  a 


24        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

report,  of  which  the  Congress  had  disapproved;  there 
fore  the  two  new  members  —  Mr.  Jefferson  of  Virginia, 
and  Mr.  Dickinson  of  Pennsylvania.  Jefferson's  pen 
was  again  called  into  requisition.  He  prepared  a  draft 
for  the  declaration,  but  it  was  too  strong  for  Mr. 
Dickinson,  who  still  retained  the  hope  of  reconciliation. 
Jefferson  says  that  Dickinson  was  "so  honest  a  man 
and  so  able,"  that  he  "was  requested  to  take  the  paper 
and  put  it  into  a  form  that  he  could  approve;"  that 
Dickinson  did  it,  preserving  of  Jefferson's  declaration 
"only  the  last  four  paragraphs  and  a  half;"  that  the 
committee  approved  and  reported  the  declaration,  as 
thus  framed,  to  Congress,  which  accepted  it. 

Mr.  Dickinson  belonged  to  that  class  of  people  to 
which  Alexander  Stephens  belonged  in  the  South,  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  War  between  the  States;  men  who 
wanted  to  hang  back,  who  saw  the  brink  before  them, 
who  feared  the  jump,  but  who  were  so  loyal  and  true 
to  their  neighbors  and  friends  and  states,  that  when 
the  latter  once  took  a  stand,  they  moved  up,  in  shoulder 
to  shoulder  touch,  to  stand,  until  success,  or  defeat,  or 
death  should  come. 

There  was  about  Jefferson  no  vanity  of  authorship. 
This  was  an  illustration  of  it.  It  was  years  after 
Dickinson's  "Address  on  the  Cause  of  Taking  up 
Arms"  had  been  welcomed  with  the  huzzahs  of  the 
American  people,  before  anybody,  outside  of  Congress, 
knew  that  Jefferson  had  had  any  hand  in  it  —  indeed,  it 
was  only  after  Jefferson's  death  that  his  original  draft 
was  found,  and  the  knowledge  became  general  that  the 
last  four  and  a  half  paragraphs  of  Dickinson's  paper 
were  Jefferson's.  This  address  owed  its  popularity 
chiefly  to  the  last  four  and  a  half  paragraphs. 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  25 

I  will  now  quote  some  extracts  from  Jefferson's  para 
graphs.  Remember,  it  was  an  address  to  be  read  at 
public  gatherings  and  to  our  armies  in  the  field,  and  it 
was  written  with  a  view  to  the  uses  which  it  should 
serve.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  will  agree  with  me 
or  not,  but  I  deem  these  to  be  noble  words,  eloquently 
and  worthily  clothing  manly  thought :  — 

"We  are  reduced  to  the  alternative  of  choosing  an  unconditional 
submission  to  the  tyranny  of  irritable  ministers,  or  resistance  by 
force.  The  latter  is  our  choice.  We  have  counted  the  cost  of  this 
contest,  and  find  nothing  so  dreadful  as  voluntary  slavery.  Honor, 
justice,  and  humanity,  forbid  us  tamely  to  surrender  that  freedom 
which  we  received  from  our  gallant  ancestors,  and  which  our  innocent 
posterity  have  a  right  to  receive  from  us.  We  cannot  endure  the  infamy 
of  resigning  succeeding  generations  to  the  wretchedness,  which 
inevitably  awaits  them,  if  we  basely  entail  hereditary  bondage  upon 
them.  Our  cause  is  just.  Our  union  is  perfect  —  our  internal 
resources  are  great,  and,  if  necessary,  foreign  assistance  is  undoubtedly 
attainable.  .  .  .  With  hearts  fortified  with  these  animating  reflections, 
we  most  solemnly,  before  God  and  the  world,  declare,  that,  exerting 
the  utmost  energy  of  those  powers  which  our  beneficent  Creator 
hath  graciously  bestowed  upon  us,  the  arms  we  have  been  compelled 
by  our  enemies  to  assume,  we  will,  in  defiance  of  every  hazard,  with 
unabated  firmness  and  perseverance,  employ  for  the  preservation  of 
our  liberties;  being  with  one  mind  resolved  to  die  free  men,  rather  than 
to  live  as  slaves. 

"Lest  this  declaration  shall  disquiet  the  minds  of  OUT  friends 
and  fellow  subjects  in  any  part  of  the  empire,  we  assure  them,  that 
we  mean  not  to  dissolve  that  union  which  has  so  long  and  so  happily 
subsisted  between  us,  and  which  we  sincerely  wish  to  see  restored. 
Necessity  has  not  yet  driven  us  into  that  desperate  measure,  or  induced 
us  to  excite  any  other  nation  to  war  against  them.  .  .  .  We  fight 
not  for  glory  or  for  conquest.  .  .  . 

11  In  our  own  native  land,  in  defence  of  the  freedom  that  is  our  birth 
right,  and  which  we  ever  enjoyed  until  the  late  violation  of  it;  for 
the  protection  of  our  property,  acquired  solely  by  the  honest  in- 


26        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

dustry  of  our  forefathers  and  ourselves,  and  against  violence  actually 
offered,  we  have  taken  up  arms.  We  shall  lay  them  down  when 
hostility  shall  cease  on  the  part  of  our  aggressors  and  all  danger  of 
their  being  renewed  shall  be  removed,  and  not  before." 

These  resolutions  were  submitted  to  the  Continental 
Congress  on  the  6th  day  of  July,  1775,  a  year,  lacking 
two  days,  prior  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Sixteen  days  later,  Congress  selected  as  usual  by 
ballot  —  the  members  selected  taking  priority  in 
accordance  with  the  number  of  votes  received  —  a 
committee  to  consider  and  report  on  Lord  North's 
"  Conciliatory  Proposal."  Jefferson  was  second  on  the 
committee,  the  septuagenarian  Benjamin  Franklin 
alone  receiving  a  higher  vote.  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
selected  by  the  committee  when  it  met,  to  draw  up  this 
paper.  In  his  Memoir  he  says:  "The  answer  of  the 
Virginia  Assembly  on  that  subject  having  been  ap 
proved,  I  was  requested  by  the  committee  to  prepare 
this  report,  which  will  account  for  the  similarity  of 
features  in  the  two  documents."  Yes,  they  were  nearly 
alike,  but  the  instrument  had  broadened  and  the 
words  "walked  statelier,"  to  suit  the  new  and  broader 
stage. 

John  T.  Morse,  in  his  "Thomas  Jefferson,"  says  of 
this  paper  as  it  passed  the  Virginia  Convention,  being 
substantially  as  it  passed  Congress  later:  — 

"This  was  laying  the  axe  at  the  very  root  of  the  tree  with  toler 
able  force;  and  more  blows  of  the  same  sort  followed. 

"These  were  revolutionary  words,  and  fell  short  by  ever  so 
little  of  that  direct  declaration  of  independence  which  they  antici 
pated  by  less  than  two  years.  They  would  have  cost  Jefferson  his 
head  had  it  been  less  inconvenient  to  bring  him  to  Westminster 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  27 

Hall,  and  even  that  inconvenience  would  probably  have  been  over 
come  had  forcible  opposition  been  a  little  longer  deferred  in  the 
colonies." 

That  Jefferson  had  not  surrendered  all  hope  of  a 
satisfactory  reconciliation  with  Great  Britain,  although 
he  had  gone  much  further  towards  planting  himself 
upon  the  solid  ground  of  independency  than  three- 
fourths  of  his  colleagues,  is  witnessed  by  the  language 
contained  in  a  letter  written  by  him  to  John  Randolph 
(not  he  of  Roanoke  —  "John  The  Eccentric"  —  of 
course,  but  an  earlier  and  a  nobler  one),  who,  rinding  it 
impossible  to  take  up  arms  against  the  King,  and 
unthinkable  to  take  up  arms  against  his  neighbors, 
had  sacrificed  everything  he  had  in  Virginia  and  gone 
to  England  —  not  to  fight  with  her,  but  to  live  in 
peace  —  one  of  those  noble  souls  willing  and  able  to 
stand  and  suffer  all  things  alone,  rather  than  take  a 
choice  between  two  wrongs,  as  he  saw  them.  That  his 
conduct  was  mistaken,  few  can  doubt.  That  it  was 
noble  and  unselfish,  his  own  sacrifices  witness.  Jef 
ferson  wrote  to  him  a  letter  from  Monticello,  dated 
August  25,  1775.  In  this  case,  as  in  all  others,  Jeffer 
son  never  permits  his  hatred  of  a  course  to  alienate  him 
from  a  friend.  The  letter  to  John  Randolph,  uncom 
promisingly,  even  aggressively  patriotic,  in  every  line 
of  it,  was  also  uncompromisingly  friendly  to  the 
recipient  of  it. 

I  want  you  to  read  that  letter.  If  you  are  both 
manly  and  kindly,  it  will  do  you  good.  It  aims  to  get 
Randolph  to  use  his  influence  to  bring  about  in  the 
mother  country  a  juster  appreciation  of  the  rights  and 
of  the  earnestness  of  the  colonies. 


28        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Later,  on  November  25th,  he  wrote  to  the  same 
Mr.  Randolph,  then  in  England,  another  letter,  from 
which  it  appears  that  he  had  meantime  gone  several 
steps  further  towards  irrevocable  independency.  In 
part  it  reads:  — 

"In  the  early  part  of  this  contest,  our  petitions  told  him  that 
from  our  King  there  was  but  one  appeal.  The  admonition  was 
despised,  and  that  appeal  forced  on  us.  To  undo  his  empire,  he 
has  but  one  truth  more  to  learn;  that  after  colonies  have  drawn  the 
sword,  there  is  but  one  step  more  they  can  take.  That  step  is  now 
pressed  upon  us  by  the  measures  adopted,  as  if  they  were  afraid 
we  would  not  take  it.  Believe  me,  dear  sir,  there  is  not  in  the 
British  empire,  a  man  who  more  cordially  loves  a  union  with  Great 
Britain,  than  I  do.  But  by  the  God  that  made  me,  I  will  cease  to 
exist  before  I  yield  to  a  connection  on  such  terms  as  the  British 
Parliament  proposes;  and  in  this,  I  think  I  speak  the  sentiments  of 
America.  We  want  neither  inducement  nor  power,  to  declare  and 
assert  a  separation.  It  is  will,  alone,  which  is  wanting,  and  that  is 
growing  apace  under  the  fostering  hand  of  our  King." 

Fiske  adds  as  a  comment  upon  this:  " Observe  the 
historical  accuracy  of  this  wording.  It  was  not  a 
question  of  throwing  off  a  yoke,  but  of  refusing  to 
yield  to  a  connection  on  newfangled  and  degrading 
terms." 

Jefferson,  in  his  "Notes  on  Virginia,"  says,  "It  is 
well  known  that  in  July,  1775,  a  separation  from  Great 
Britain  and  establishment  of  republican  government 
had  never  yet  entered  into  any  person's  mind.  If 
any  period  can  be  fixed,  when  the  idea  of  independence 
became  any  more  than  a  thought,  or  ceased  to  become 
a  mere  thought  and  became  in  some  lines  a  policy,  it 
probably  would  be  the  date  upon  which  the  com 
munication  from  Richard  Perm  and  Arthur  Lee,  who 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  29 

had  been  sent  to  Great  Britain  to  deliver  the  second 
petition  to  the  King,  was  received  and  read  in 
Congress." 

This  communication  from  Penn  and  Lee  stated  that 
the  reply  of  the  King  was,  that  "no  answer  would  be 
given."  This  high-handed  and  contemptuous  ignoring 
of  a  respectfully,  even  humbly,  worded  address,  caused 
anger  and  resulted  in  the  conclusion  on  the  part  of  the 
bolder  natures,  that  the  step  forward  to  independence 
must  at  once  be  taken. 

Jefferson  had  long  considered  the  possibility,  as  his 
pregnant  "as  yets"  and  very  many  other  phrases 
demonstrate.  But  there  is  always  a  step,  long  or 
short,  between  considering  a  thing  as  a  dernier  resort, 
and  embracing  it  as  a  present  measure  of  redress. 

Mr.  Adams  is  simply  mistaken  when,  writing  in  his 
old  age,  he  says  that  he  had  been  determined  "from  the 
first  assembling  of  the  Congress  in  1775  upon  inde 
pendence,"  and  that  "this  was  no  secret  in  or  out  of 
Congress."  Old  men  are  apt  to  get  dates  wrong. 
Adams  and  Jefferson  both  did  it,  when  writing  in  then- 
old  age  about  things  which  occurred  in  their  early 
manhood.  Adams'  letters,  like  those  of  Jefferson, 
which  I  have  quoted,  show  that,  except  in  so  far  as  it 
was  a  possibility  to  be  contemplated,  if  the  worst  came 
to  the  worst,  independence  was  not  yet  urged  by  any. 
John  Jay's  and  Benjamin  Franklin's  memories  accord 
with  Jefferson's. 

The  truth  is  that  Americans,  as  a  rule,  were  almost 
as  unwilling  to  tear  themselves  from  governmental 
connection  with  the  British  Isles,  as  were  the  "Jackson 
Democrats"  and  the  "Old  Line  Whigs"  in  the  South, 


30        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

at  the  beginning  of  The  War  between  the  States  to 
" dissolve  the  bonds  that  bound"  them  to  the  Union, 
and  in  each  case  there  was  an  idea  of  fighting,  even  if 
bloodshed  came,  "  under  the  old  flag,"  as  abused 
subjects,  or  citizens,  of  the  old  government,  rather  than 
as  citizens  of  an  independent  country. 

Indeed,  on  November  29, 1775,  the  date  of  Jefferson's 
second  letter  to  Randolph,  Congress  itself  used  this 
language;  "that  they  should  rely  to  the  last  on  heaven 
and  their  own  virtues  for  security  against  the  abusive 
system  pressed  by  the  administration  for  the  ruin  of 
America,"  and  that  "there  is  nothing  more  ardently 
desired  by  North  America  than  a  lasting  union  with 
Great  Britain,  on  terms  of  justice  and  equal  liberty" 

As  late  as  December,  1775,  the  Continental  Congress 
speaks  of  the  British  constitution  as  "our  best  inherit 
ance." 

Remember  all  this,  when  we  come  to  discuss  the 
American  Counter-Revolution,  in  the  lecture,  "Jeffer 
son  the  Democratizer  of  National  Administration." 

What  Adams  in  his  old  age  wrote  about  the  circum 
stances  attending  the  writing  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  equally  inaccurate. 

On  August  30,  1823,  what  Adams  wrote  having  been 
printed,  Mr.  Jefferson  made  the  following  correction:  — 

"Mr.  Adams'  memory  has  led  him  into  unquestionable  error. 
At  the  age  of  eighty-eight,  and  forty-seven  years  after  the  trans 
actions  of  independence,  this  is  not  wonderful.  Nor  should  I,  at 
the  age  of  eighty,  on  the  small  advantage  of  that  difference  only, 
venture  to  oppose  my  memory  to  his,  were  it  not  supported  by 
written  notes  taken  by  myself  at  the  moment  and  on  the  spot.  .  .  . 
Now  these  details  are  quite  incorrect.  The  Committee  of  Five  met; 
no  such  thing  as  a  subcommittee  was  proposed,  but  they  unani- 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  31 

mously  pressed  on  myself  alone  to  undertake  the  draft.  I  con 
sented;  I  drew  it;  but  before  I  reported  it  to  the  committee,  I 
communicated  it  separately  to  Doctor  Franklin  and  Mr.  Adams, 
requesting  their  corrections,  because  they  were  the  two  members 
of  whose  judgments  and  amendments  I  wished  most  to  have  the 
benefit,  before  presenting  it  to  the  Committee;  and  you  have  seen 
the  original  paper  now  in  my  hands,  with  the  corrections  of  Doctor 
Franklin  and  Mr.  Adams  interlined  in  their  own  handwritings. 
Their  alterations  were  two  or  three  only,  and  merely  verbal.  I 
then  wrote  a  fair  copy,  reported  it  to  the  Committee,  and  from 
them,  unaltered,  to  Congress.  This  personal  communication  and 
consultation  with  Mr.  Adams  he  has  misremembered  into  the 
actings  of  a  sub-committee." 

Jefferson  gratefully  says  that  Adams  was  "the 
colossus  of  that  debate." 

From  November,  1775,  on,  the  number  of  those,  who 
had  decided  upon  independence,  as  the  only  satis 
factory  issue  out  of  the  contest,  increased.  It  is 
wonderful  even  then  how  few  of  our  people  based  their 
contention  upon  anything  more  than  English  statutes 
and  customs  and  traditions  —  all  of  doubtful  appli 
cation.  Few  of  them,  except  Jefferson,  went  as  far  as 
Johan  Derk  van  Capellen  went  in  his  reply  to  George 
III,  who,  having  asked  the  states  of  Overyssel  for 
troops,  was  answered  that  Johan  Derk  thought,  "the 
Americans  worthy  of  every  man's  esteem,"  and  looked 
upon  them  as  "a  brave  people,  defending  in  a  becoming, 
manly,  and  religious  manner  those  rights,  which,  as  men, 
they  derived  from  God;  not  from  the  legislature  of  Great 
Britain" 

Thus,  though  Mr.  Jefferson  had  a  hard  time  at 
home  in  keeping  his  phrases  "natural  rights,"  and 
"inherent  rights,"  and  "rights  derived  from  God," 
and  all  that,  from  being  stricken  out  of  his  public 


32        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

papers  as  too  rhetorical,  or  too  abstract,  old  Johan 
Derk  van  Capellen,  away  over  in  Overyssel,  had  the 
American  idea  and  expressed  it. 

On  May  15,  1776,  Virginia,  where  the  King's  name 
had  been  already  legislated  out  of  the  prayer  book  and 
the  Continental  Congress  substituted  for  it,  adopted 
her  resolutions  instructing  her  representatives  in  the 
Continental  Congress  to  take  the  initiative  and  to 
move  independence.  Moreover,  the  House  of  Bur 
gesses  passed  a  "  declaration  of  rights/'  and  ordered 
" a  plan  of  government"  to  be  prepared;  in  other  words, 
a  written  constitution  for  Virginia.  Significantly  Amer 
ican  this  written  Constitution!  The  thing  had  gone 
out  of  use  since  the  times  of  the  Greek  Republics. 

Mr.  Jefferson's  absence  early  in  May  from  Phila 
delphia  and  his  stay  in  Virginia  for  nearly  four  months 
were  due  to  a  desire  to  prepare  the  public  mind  in 
Virginia  for  this  step.  He  remained  in  Virginia  nearly 
four  months,  at  any  rate,  and  then  immediately  upon  his 
return  to  Congress,  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee 
to  consider  and  report  a  declaration  of  independence. 

Richard  Henry  Lee,  on  Friday,  June  7th,  being 
"Dean  of  the  Virginia  Delegation  in  Congress,"  called 
up  the  resolutions,  which  the  Virginia  House  of  Bur 
gesses  had  instructed  the  delegates  from  Virginia  to 
present.  Their  consideration  was  postponed  until  the 
next  day.  They  were  debated  in  committee  of  the 
whole,  throughout  Saturday  and  the  succeeding  Mon 
day,  and  then  this  resolution  was  passed :  — 

"Resolved,  That  the  consideration  of  the  first  resolution  be 
postponed  to  Monday,  the  first  of  July  next;  and  in  the  meanwhile, 
in  order  that  no  time  be  lost,  in  case  the  Congress  agree  thereto, 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  33 

that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  prepare  a  declaration  to  the 
effect  of  the  first  resolution,  which  is  in  these  words:  that  these 
colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  states; 
that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  Crown,  and 
that  all  political  connection  between  them  and  the  state  of  Great 
Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved." 

The  delay  was  because  Congress,  like  the  old  Virginia 
House  of  Burgesses,  was  trying  "to  keep  front  and 
rear  together." 

It  was  on  the  llth  of  June,  that  the  committee  for 
preparing  and  reporting  a  declaration  of  independence, 
consisting  of  five  members,  was  chosen,  as  usual,  by 
ballot  (the  members,  by  the  parliamentary  usage  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  taking  their  places  upon  the 
committee  list  according  to  the  number  of  votes  cast 
for  them,  the  one  receiving  the  highest  vote  being  ipso 
facto  chairman).  The  committee  thus  selected  con 
sisted  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  first,  John  Adams,  second, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  third,  Roger  Sherman,  fourth,  and 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  fifth.  Thus  fell  to  Jefferson  the 
glorious  task  so  memorably  performed. 

During  the  last  session  of  the  last  Congress  of  the 
United  States  —  such  is  the  legacy  of  class  hatred  of 
Jefferson,  deceiving  good  men  —  a  Senator  arose  in  all 
a  grave  Senator's  solemnity  —  wholly  unconscious  of 
revamped  Federalistic  prejudices  --  and  amusingly 
denied  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  putting  him  down  as  a 
sort  of  amanuensis  or  "secretary"  to  the  committee. 
He  also  denied  that  he  was  "one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Government.'7  It  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  on  his 
first  denial.  Not  only  Jefferson's  own  testimony,  but 
that  of  Franklin  and  that  of  Adams,  settle  in  his  favor 
4 


34        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

exclusively  the  authorship  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  There  is  more  plausibility  in  the  denial, 
that  Jefferson  was  "one  of  the  founders  of  our  Govern 
ment,"  if  the  word  "Government"  be  taken  to  mean 
the  American  Government,  under  the  present  Con 
stitution.  Of  course,  Jefferson  was,  at  the  time  of  the 
formation  of  the  present  Constitution,  in  France. 
But  it  is  also  true,  as  all  of  us  know,  that  he  had  a 
great  deal  of  correspondence,  especially  with  Madison, 
and  with  other  Virginians,  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution,  conditioned  upon  the  enactment  by 
way  of  amendment  of  what  now  constitute  the  first 
ten  amendments  —  containing,  for  the  most  part,  the 
guarantees  of  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press, 
of  assembly,  and  freedom  of  religion,  etc.  —  in  short, 
a  bill  of  rights,  and  also  the  vital  declaration,  that 
" powers  not  delegated"  were  " reserved  to  the  states 
or  the  people."  His  opposition,  added  to  that  of 
Henry,  Mason  and  Lee  in  Virginia,  would  have  defeated 
its  adoption  there,  and  prevented  the  formation  of  the 
new  Government.  This  was  appreciated  by  Madison 
at  the  time.  His  name,  authority  and  letters  in  favor 
of  adoption  were  invoked  and  used.  Thus,  even  in 
this  sense,  Jefferson  was  one  of  the  "founders"  of  the 
Government  under  the  present  Constitution.  It  is  a 
mistake,  however,  to  say  that  our  Government  was 
founded  with  the  present  Constitution.  The  present 
was  an  "amendment  in  the  nature  of  a  substitute," 
to  the  old  Constitution  of  our  Union.  If  not  founded 
when  the  first  Continental  Congress  convened,  or  even 
earlier  as  a  result  of  the  work  of  the  committees  of 
correspondence,  then  "our  Government"  was  founded 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  35 

with  the  passage  of  the  resolution  offered  in  the  name 
and  under  the  instructions  of  Virginia,  by  Richard 
Henry  Lee. 

This  resolution,  taken  up  for  consideration  by  the 
Continental  Congress  on  the  8th  of  June,  was  passed, 
as  a  part  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  upon 
July  4,  1776,  so  that,  in  a  broader  sense,  Thomas 
Jefferson  was  not  only  one  of  the  founders  of  this 
Government,  but  was  the  designer  and  architect  of  its 
foundation. 

After  that  date,  there  was  an  authorized  legal 
government  of  these  " United  States'7  —  however  in 
efficient,  however  incongruous,  and  however  pregnant 
with  the  seed  of  future  dissolution. 

This  great  Declaration  was  drawn  by  Thomas 
Jefferson,  when  he  was  thirty-three  years  of  age.  But, 
notwithstanding  his  comparative  youth,  John  Fiske, 
one  of  the  wisest  and  greatest  of  American  historians, 
says  that  "of  all  the  men  of  that  time,  there  was 
perhaps  none  of  wider  culture,  or  keener  political 
instincts.  ...  He  had  always  been  passionately  fond 
of  study  for  its  own  sake,  and  to  a  very  wide  reading  in 
history  and  in  ancient  and  modern  literature,  he  added 
no  mean  proficiency  in  mathematics  and  in  physical 
science.  ...  He  was  deeply  interested  in  all  the 
generous  theories  of  the  eighteenth  century,  concerning 
the  rights  of  man  and  the  perfectibility  of  human 
nature;  and,  like  most  of  the  contemporary  philosophers, 
whom  he  admired,  he  was  a  sturdy  foe  to  intolerance 
and  priestcraft.  He  was,  in  his  way,  a  much  more 
profound  thinker  than  Hamilton,  though  he  had  not 
such  a  constructive  genius  as  the  latter;  as  a  political 


36        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

leader  he  was  superior  to  any  other  man  of  his  age;  and 
his  warm  sympathies,  his  almost  feminine  tact,  his 
mastery  of  the  dominant  political  ideas  of  the  time,  and, 
above  all,  his  unbounded  faith  in  the  common  sense  of 
the  people  and  in  their  essential  rectitude  of  purpose, 
served  to  give  him  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  com 
manding  positions  ever  held  by  any  personage  in 
American  history/' 

I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Fiske  had  any  basis  of 
historical  fact  for  the  statement  that  Jefferson  was  not 
such  "a  constructive  genius,"  as  Hamilton.  As  far 
as  I  know,  or  have  thus  far  in  my  life  been  able  to 
learn,  Hamilton  never  constructed  anything,  except  a 
scheme  for  tying  the  monied  classes  to  the  Govern 
ment,  and  the  government  to  them  —  a  wedding  knot 
that  we  have  ever  since  been  trying  to  undo.  He 
attempted  to  construct  a  constitution,  peculiarly  un- 
American,  and  alien,  then  and  now,  to  all  the  habits 
and  thoughts  of  Americans.  In  this  he  totally  failed. 
He  did  not  construct  even  a  financial  system,  but  imi 
tated,  as  nearly  as  anyone  could  dare,  a  system  long 
before  constructed  in  England.  He  did  construct  a 
system  of  bookkeeping  in  the  Treasury  Department, 
which  has  partially  remained,  as  an  involved  curse, 
though  Jefferson  and  Gallatin  managed  to  rid  us  of 
much  of  it,  by  a  process  of  simplification.  But  Fiske  is 
exactly  right  when  he  emphasizes  Jefferson's  unbounded 
faith  in  the  common  sense  of  the  people  and  in  their 
"  essential  rectitude  of  purpose,"  as  his  great  and  salient 
characteristic.  It  is  through  this  characteristic  that  his 
influence  upon  American  political  institutions,  adminis 
trations,  and  thought  has  been  effectively  permanent. 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  37 

In  a  certain  sense,  neither  Jefferson  nor  any  other 
one  man  was  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  Jefferson  was  its  draftsman,  selected  for  the 
reasons  which  Fiske  states,  and  selected  moreover  for 
the  reason  that  the  state  papers  drawn  by  him  in 
Virginia  had  challenged  admiration.  But  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  itself  was  an  evolution  of  revo 
lutionary  thought  and  expressed  in  language,  certainly 
not  mysterious  to  its  readers,  but  consonant  with  their 
ripened  convictions  —  the  slow  fruition  of  an  intense 
struggle.  Jefferson  sought  to  express  ideas,  which  in 
his  mind  and  in  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries  were 
true  and  sound,  in  justification  to  the  world  of  our 
action,  and  the  more  he  confined  himself  to  generally 
accepted  ideas,  the  more  wisely  written  —  because  the 
more  influential  —  the  document  would  be.  The  task 
was  to  "give  the  thought  wings."  This  he  did  —  such 
wings  as  no  other  man  of  his  day  could  have  given  it  — 
such  wings  as  no  other  political  thing  has  ever  yet  had. 

Those,  who  would  try  to  trace  back  the  so-called 
"glittering  generalities"  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  to  French  theorists  and  all  that,  are  not 
people  who  are  particularly  learned,  but  are,  on  this 
subject,  particularly  ignorant.  The  English-speaking 
race,  in  that  species  of  political  philosophy,  did  not 
follow,  but  preceded  France.  If  any  doubter  wants  to 
satisfy  himself  upon  that  subject,  let  him  read  John 
Locke's  "Treatises  of  Government,"  Sidney's  "Dis 
courses  on  Government,"  and  John  Milton's  "Tenure 
of  Kings  and  Magistrates,"  and  his  "Defense  of  the 
English  People." 

Moreover,   the  fact  remains,   that  if  the  English 


38        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

sources  had  not  existed,  these  convictions  would  have 
developed  themselves  necessarily  from  our  conditions. 
Our  institutions  and  our  constitutions  are  the  product 
of  American  experience,  buttressed  by  such  written 
authority  and  historical  examples  as  we  could  find  in 
the  world.  A  part  of  that  experience  was,  of  course, 
our  experience  as  a  part  of  the  English-speaking  race, 
before  we  landed  on  these  shores. 

Jefferson  here  and  always  diametrically  opposed 
Rousseau's  central  principle,  that  men  on  coming  under 
government  " voluntarily  surrender"  to  "majorities" 
their  "natural  rights. "  Jefferson's'view  was  that  these 
natural  rights  were  inalienable,  and  therefore  could  not 
be  parted  with,  even  voluntarily,  by  any  generation  of 
men.  Each  generation  was  born  to  them.  He  as 
serted  that  government  was  formed  to  protect  those 
rights,  and,  if  need  be,  even  against  majorities,  whose 
"rule  to  be  right  must  be  just."  (See  First  Inaugural.) 

It  may  be  true  that  in  other  places,  there  was  no 
where  an  actual,  historically-recorded  social  contract,  as 
the  source  of  government.  But  there  was  in  America. 
Yet  the  theory,  that  men  are  equal  as  regards  their 
"natural  rights,"  and  that  the  basis  of  all  just  govern 
ment  is  voluntary,  and  contractual,  was  not  all  original 
with  our  English  or  American  forefathers.  It  went 
back  to  the  Roman  law;  being  expressed  in  so  many 
words  in  the  Roman  Digest  (L.  17,  32),  published  three 
and  a  quarter  centuries  after  Christ,  and  is  asserted  by 
Professor  Otto  Gierke  to  have  been  "an  axiom  of 
political  theory  from  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century." 
All  this  is  found  abundantly  amplified  in  Mr.  Merriam's 
"American  Political  Theories." 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  39 

What  was  new  in  America  was  not  the  doctrine,  nor 
theory  as  a  basis  for  reasoning,  but  the  object  lesson  of 
it.  I  cannot  too  often  emphasize  the  thought,  that 
this  was  due  to  the  fact  that  we  had  our  beginnings  in 
the  woods. 

Merwin  says  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that 
"both  as  a  political  and  a  literary  document,  it  has 
stood  the  test  of  time.  It  has  all  the  classic  qualities 
of  an  oration  by  Demosthenes;  and  even  in  that  passage 
in  which  it  has  been  criticized  —  that,  namely,  which 
pronounced  all  men  to  be  created  equal  —  is  true  in  a 
sense,  the  truth  of  which  it  will  take  a  century  or  two 
yet  to  develop. " 

In  fact,  a  peculiar  excellence  of  this  and  many  other 
utterances  of  Mr.  Jefferson  is,  that  in  them  lie  thoughts 
in  advance  of  his  time  —  germs  destined  to  multiply 
and  take  possession.  Here  and  there  he  puts  in  "a 
little  leaven, "  which,  at  the  time,  is  hardly  noticed,  but 
will  later  "leaven  the  whole  lump." 

It  remained  for  Lincoln  later  on  to  take  up  what 
were  called  the  "glittering  generalities"  of  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  to  muster  them  into  practical 
political  service,  saying  that  they  were  meant  "to 
declare  the  right,  so  that  enforcement  of  it  might  follow, 
as  soon  as  circumstances  should  permit,"  and  that  their 
expression  had  been  "constantly  looked  to,  constantly 
labored  for,  and  even  though  never  perfectly  attained, 
constantly  approximated,  and  thereby  constantly 
spreading  and  deepening  its  influence,  and  augmenting 
the  happiness  and  value  of  life  to  all  people  of  all  colors 
everywhere." 

As  we  have  seen,  Mr.  Jefferson,  before  submitting  his 


40        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  the  full 
committee,  communicated  it  separately  to  Franklin  and 
Adams.  They  made  two  or  three  suggestions,  merely 
verbal,  and  these  were  adopted. 

The  original  paper  in  Jefferson's  handwriting,  with 
Adams's  and  Franklin's  interlineations,  is  in  Washing 
ton.  It  has  been  frequently  published  in  fac  simile  and 
is  a  thing  of  common  knowledge.  Mr.  Adams  is  thus 
mistaken  in  saying  that  he  himself  did  not  make  or 
suggest  a  single  alteration.  He  and  Franklin  each 
suggested  some  purely  verbal  changes,  which  Jefferson 
at  once  accepted.  With  regard  to  matters  of  which  he 
had  personal  knowledge,  Jefferson's  memory  was 
almost  invariably  accurate.  A  man  hunting  incon 
sistencies  of  opinion  wherewith  to  charge  him  would 
find  his  labors  somewhat  rewarded,  as  he  would  con 
cerning  any  other  man  possessed  of  a  growing  intellect 
and  a  progressive  character. 

When  the  draft  reached  Congress,  those  passages 
which  censured  the  people  of  England  were  stricken 
out,  and  the  clause  which  censured  the  King  for  acts  en 
slaving  inhabitants  of  Africa  and  bringing  them  to  the 
shores  of  America  was  also  stricken  out.  Jefferson 
says,  that  this  was  done  "in  complaisance  to  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia,"  adding:  "Our  northern  brethren 
also,  I  believe,  felt  a  little  tender  under  these  censures; 
for  though  their  people  had  very  few  slaves  themselves, 
yet  they  had  been  pretty  considerable  carriers  of  them 
to  others." 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  policy  of  Congress  in 
striking  out  that  part  of  the  Declaration  which  censured 
the  people  of  England,  it  cannot  be  said,  that  it  made 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  41 

the  Declaration  to  accord  better  with  the  facts  of 
history.  As  it  is,  George  III  and  Parliament  alone 
are  held  up  to  blame.  There  is  no  doubt  about  the 
fact  that,  at  the  beginning,  at  any  rate,  and  until  very 
near  the  end  of  the  struggle,  the  people  of  England  were 
in  accord  with  their  King  and  Parliament. 

Lord  John  Russell,  in  his  "Life  of  Fox,"  Volume  1, 
page  134,  makes  this  clear.  Jefferson,  as  usual,  was 
right,  and  his  correctors  wrong.  He  was  right,  too, 
with  regard  to  that  part  of  the  draft,  which  referred 
to  the  slave  trade.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  case 
in  other  colonies,  in  Virginia,  at  any  rate,  the  utmost 
effort  had  been  made  to  stop  it;  a  half  score  or  more  of 
acts  had  been  passed,  only  to  be  vetoed  by  royal 
governors  under  royal  instructions. 

Concerning  the  Declaration  itself,  Adams  later,  in  a 
letter  to  Pickering,  in  the  year  1822,  says:  "As  you 
justly  observe,  there  is  not  an  idea  in  it  but  what  had 
been  hackneyed  in  Congress  for  two  years  before." 
He  adds:  "The  substance  of  it  is  contained  in  the 
declaration  of  rights,  ...  in  the  Journals  of  Congress 
in  1774.  Indeed,  the  essence  of  it  is  contained  in  a 
pamphlet,  voted  and  printed  by  the  town  of  Boston, 
before  the  first  Congress  met,  composed  by  James  Otis, 
as  I  suppose,  in  one  of  his  lucid  intervals,  and  pruned 
and  polished  by  Samuel  Adams." 

Mr.  Jefferson,  on  seeing  this  —  which  had  been 
greedily  published  by  Pickering  —  with  a  forbearance 
characteristic  of  him,  when  dealing  with  Mr.  Adams, 
except  for  a  few  brief  months  of  his  life,  when  he  was 
provoked  into  retaliatory  utterances  —  nobly  and 
modestly  said:  — 


42        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"Pickering's  observations,  and  Mr.  Adams's  in  addition,  'that 
it  contained  no  new  ideas,  that  it  is  a  commonplace  compilation, 
its  sentiments  hackneyed  in  Congress  for  two  years  before,  and  its 
essence  contained  in  Otis's  pamphlet,'  may  all  be  true.  Of  that  I 
am  not  to  be  the  judge.  Richard  Henry  Lee  charged  it,  as  copied 
from  Locke's  *  Treatise  on  Government.'  .  .  .  Otis's  pamphlet  I 
never  saw,  and  whether  I  had  gathered  my  ideas  from  reading  or 
reflection,  I  do  not  know.  I  know  only  that  I  turned  to  neither 
book  nor  pamphlet,  while  writing  it.  I  did  not  consider  it,  as  any 
part  of  my  charge,  to  invent  new  ideas  altogether,  and  to  offer  no 
sentiment  which  had  ever  been  expressed  before.  .  .  .  Whether, 
also,  the  sentiments  of  independence,  and  the  reasons  for  declaring 
it,  which  made  so  great  a  portion  of  the  instrument,  had  been  hack 
neyed  in  Congress  for  two  years  before  the  4th  of  July,  76,  or  this 
dictum  also  of  Mr.  Adams  be  another  slip  of  memory,  let  history 
say.  This,  however,  I  will  say  for  Mr.  Adams,  that  he  supported 
the  Declaration  with  zeal  and  ability,  fighting  fearlessly  for  every 
word  of  it." 

The  curious  reader  may  consult  the  pamphlet  of 
James  Otis,  the  Declaration  of  Rights  and  the  Journals 
of  Congress,  and  determine  for  himself  how  far  Mr. 
Adams's  afterthought  was  well  founded.  He  will  find 
it  in  no  true  sense  justified.  If  any  publication  fur 
nished  more  than  another  foundation  for  the  Decla 
ration,  it  was  Jefferson's  own  "  Summary  View  of  the 
Rights  of  British  America,"  and  his  " Reply  to  Lord 
North's  Conciliatory  Proposal."  Another  truth  is 
that  the  Committee  on  Rights  and  Grievances,  whose 
report  was  drawn  by  John  Adams,  in  September,  1774, 
contained  substantially  much  that  was  in  Jefferson's 
"  Summary  View."  The  "  Summary  View  "  was  pre 
sented  to  the  Convention  of  Virginia  before  the  Congress 
of  1774  met,  and  the  Committee  of  Rights  and  Griev 
ances  had  access  to  that  paper.  Thus  the  borrowing,  if 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  43 

there  were  any  conscious  borrowing,  was  a  borrowing  by 
Adams  from  Jefferson,  and  not  the  other  way.  There 
is,  however,  no  plagiarism  in  either.  Jefferson  had 
neither  paper,  book,  nor  pamphlet  before  him  when  he 
wrote  the  Declaration,  and  it  is  presumbably  also  a  fact 
that  Mr.  Adams  had  none  when  he  wrote  the  Report  on 
Rights  and  Grievances,  though  both  had  in  their  minds 
many  fixed  and  popular  ideas,  which  had  become  trite, 
and,  many  of  them,  ideas  advanced  and  rendered  popu 
lar  by  Jefferson  in  his  "Summary  View,"  so  widely 
disseminated  not  only  in  America  but  in  England. 

The  Declaration  accomplished  its  end.  It  went  to 
the  comprehension  of  the  average  man  with  over 
whelming  force.  It  was  full  of  "  keynote  phrases." 
It  was  "  quo  table  "  —  began  at  once  to  be  quoted  and 
has  been  ever  since.  Every  American  became  a  Dick 
Swiveller  of  its  phrases.  It  gave  unity  of  expression 
to  the  American  people.  It  was  received  everywhere 
with  enthusiasm;  ordered  to  be  read  at  the  head  of  the 
armed  forces;  people,  after  hearing  it,  tore  down 
statues  and  pictures  of  the  king  and  of  colonial  gover 
nors.  They  also  welcomed  it  in  churches  with  prayers 
and  sermons. 

We  have  seen  that  when  the  Virginia  Convention 
instructed  their  delegates  in  Congress  to  introduce  a 
resolution  declaring  American  independence,  they 
also  appointed  a  committee  to  draw  up  a  "  decla 
ration  of  rights,"  as  they  called  it,  and  a  "plan  of 
government"  for  Virginia.  Mr.  Jefferson  prepared 
and  forwarded  from  Philadelphia  the  outline  of  a  plan. 
It  reached  Virginia  too  late,  because  the  Bill  of  Rights 
and  the  Constitution  of  Virginia  had  been  agreed  to, 


44        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

but  the  lofty  preamble  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  plan  pleased 
the  committee  so  much,  that  they  prefaced  it  to  the 
great  work  of  George  Mason  —  the  first  Constitution 
of  Virginia,  and  the  first  in  America  to  be  written  by 
the  representatives  of  the  people  —  which  was  passed 
on  June  20,  1776,  the  day  after  the  draft  of  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence  was  reported  to  the  Continental 
Congress.  This  preamble  was  drawn  by  Jefferson, 
therefore,  prior  to  his  composition  of  the  Declaration, 
He  says,  after  dwelling  upon  that  fact:  "Both  having 
the  same  object,  of  justifying  our  separation  from 
Great  Britain,  they  used  necessarily  the  same  materials 
of  justification,  and  hence  their  similitude." 

I  mention  this,  because  in  the  constant  efforts  oi 
those  who  hated  and  hate  democracy  to  write  Jefferson 
down  in  his  lifetime  and  after  his  death,  every  little 
thing  has  been  taken  advantage  of,  in  the  attempt  tc 
decrease  his  credit,  and  among  other  things,  he  was 
accused  of  having  plagiarized  parts  of  the  Declaration 
from  the  Preamble  of  The  Constitution  of  Virginia;  in 
other  words,  from  himself. 

The  opening  sentences  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  are  frequently  referred  to  as  a  part  of  some 
sort  of  French  infection.  In  the  first  place,  the  French 
revolution  had  not  begun,  and,  in  the  second  place,  there 
is  not  an  idea  contained  in  it,  that  is  not  purely  Jeffer- 
sonian. 

By  the  way,  I  love  very  much  a  phrase  which  Fiske 
uses  as  the  caption  of  one  of  his  chapters:  "Thomas 
Jefferson,  The  Conservative  Reformer." 

This  quotation  from  it,  I  recommend  to  all  readers:  — 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  45 

"Because  in  later  years  Jefferson  came  to  be  the  head  of  a  party 
which  sympathized  with  revolutionary  France,  there  has  come  into 
existence  a  legendary  view  of  him  as  a  sort  of  French  doctrinaire 
politician  and  disciple  of  Rousseau.  Nothing  could  be  more 
grotesquely  absurd.  Jefferson  was  broad  enough  to  learn  lessons 
from  France,  but  he  was  no  Frenchman  in  his  politics;  and  we  shall 
not  understand  him  until  we  see  in  him  simply  the  earnest,  but  cool- 
headed,  representative  of  the  rural  English  freeholders,  that  won 
Magna  Charta  and  overthrew  the  usurpations  of  the  Stuarts." 

Cornelius  de  Witt,  after  analyzing  much  of  the 
historical  and  legal  parts  of  the  Declaration,  says:  — 

"The  other  principle  was  that  of  the  rights  of  man.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  contained  a  list  of  rights,  such  as  were 
familiar  to  the  colonists  of  England,  but  were  only  theories  elsewhere. 
The  success  of  the  Revolution  was,  therefore,  a  shock  to  the  system 
of  privilege  and  of  class  exemptions  from  the  common  burdens, 
which  had  lasted  since  feudal  times.  The  French  Revolution  of 
1789  was  an  attempt  to  apply  upon  alien  ground  the  principles  of  the 
American  Revolution."  (Italics  mine  here  and  always.) 

If  there  was  any  drawing  of  ideas  either  way,  the 
French  revolutionists  drew  from  America  and  from  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Many  of  the  French 
officers  and  soldiers  went  back  to  France  with  ideas, 
which,  perhaps,  would  have  been  altogether  unfamiliar 
to  them  —  except  for  their  sojourn  in  America.  It 
may  be  a  "glittering  generality"  —  I  don't  know  — 
but  I  rather  regard  it  as  a  golden  actuality,  founded 
upon  everlasting  truth,  that  men  are  "  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among 
which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness," 
if  only  the  last  be  honest,  pure,  peaceable  and  fair. 

Nor  do  I  regard  the  latter  part  of  that  clause  in  the 
Constitution,  which  says  that  all  powers  not  delegated 


46         PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

to  the  federal  government  are  reserved  to  the  states 
respectively  "and  to  the  people,"  as  a  "glittering 
generality."  I  do  understand  this  clause  reserving 
certain  rights  "to  the  people,"  to  mean  just  this  class 
of  natural  and  inalienable  rights  —  antedating  and 
superior  to  all  governmental  authority.  In  this  class 
are  freedom  of  religion,  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of 
association,  the  right  of  petition,  freedom  from  un 
reasonable  search  and  arrest  —  in  fact,  everything  in 
that  vast  realm  where  the  individual  is  his  own  governor, 
and  responsible  only  to  God  —  a  realm  whose  bound 
aries  are  located  just  where  the  exercise  of  his  freedom 
begins  to  interfere  with  the  right  of  others  to  preserve 
their  life,  or  limb,  or  property  honestly  acquired.  I 
count  it  a  great  happiness  for  the  American  people,  that 
they  did  not  base  their  claims  altogether  upon  the 
rights  of  British  subjects  and  upon  the  black-letter  of 
the  law  books,  but,  fundamentally,  upon  the  natural 
rights  of  man,  and  especially  upon  the  right  of  any 
community,  for  a  reason  seeming  necessary  to  that 
community,  to  change  the  form,  or  set  aside  the 
substance  of  a  government,  unjust  and  oppressive,  and 
to  establish  in  its  stead  one  concordant  with  the 
public  welfare,  with  human  freedom,  with  equality  of 
rights  and  opportunities,  and  equal  administration  of 
justice;  a  new  government,  "deriving  its  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  As  Merriam  well 
says:  this  theory  that  governments  derive  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed  "could  hardly 
be  called  a  theory  at  all."  It  is  the  American  "working 
hypothesis." 

Not  only  did  the  individual  have  under  it  certain 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  47 

rights,  that  were  inherent  and  inalienable,  but  out  of 
this  grew  e  converso  the  fundamental  principle,  that  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  is  inherent  and  inalienable, 
with  regard  to  things  not  fundamentally  individual,  or, 
as  Roger  Williams  said,  things  not  "of  the  first  table." 
Many  people  wonder  why  it  was  that  so  many  people 
in  the  South,  and  especially  in  the  border  States,  denied 
"the  right  of  peaceful  secession,"  and  said  that  there 
was  no  law  for  it,  either  statutory  or  constitutional,  yet 
"went  with  their  States."  They  stood  upon  "the 
right  of  revolution"  —  the  right  of  a  people  of  a  State, 
if  in  their  opinion  the  federal  government  became  sec 
tional,  oppressive  or  unjust  —  or  threatened  to  become 
so  —  to  throw  it  off;  to  "dissolve  the  ties  that  bound 
them  to  it,"  as  the  phrase  went,  and,  if  opposed  in  this, 
to  take  the  field  in  armed  assertion  of  their  right  to  be 
permitted  "to  go  in  peace,"  as  Sweden  of  late  permitted 
Norway  to  go.  This  was  the  view  of  my  own  father. 
It  is  easily  explicable,  if  you  will  remember,  that  these 
people,  perhaps  more  than  any  other,  were  permeated 
with  the  political  theory  of  the  revolutionary  period, 
although  perhaps  the  most  radical  utterances  of  this 
theory  earlier  in  our  history  had  come  from  New 
England.  Practically,  of  course,  this  sort  of  right 
rests  ultimately  on  the  acquiescence  of  others,  or  else 
upon  the  power  of  the  community  to  assert  it  success 
fully  with  arms  in  its  hands.  But  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  more  moderate  expression  of  the  idea  — 
still  radical,  but  not  so  extremely  radical  —  contained 
in  Jefferson's  ringing  words  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  —  was  almost  universally  entertained  in 
America  in  his  time.  In  fact,  most  Revolution-tune 


48        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Tories  denied  only  that  the  exigency  had  come  to 
justify  the  exercise  of  "the  right  of  revolution/'  and 
either  denied  the  grievances,  or  else  asserted  that 
grievances  could  be  redressed  more  certainly  and 
safely  without  resorting  to  so  extreme  a  revolution  as 
independence.  A  like  opinion  was  that  of  many 
Union  men  in  the  South  —  some  300,000  of  them  in 
the  Union  armies  —  who  fought  and  some  died  — 
acknowledging  the  right,  and  denying  that  the  occasion 
justified  its  invocation.  This  more  moderate  expres 
sion  contained  in  the  Declaration  is,  in  these  words, 
familiar  to  all:  "Whenever  any  form  of  government 
becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the 
people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new 
government,  laying  its  foundations  on  such  principles, 
and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall 
seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  happiness.7' 

Pennsylvania,  in  her  first  constitution,  asserted  that 
"the  community  hath  an  indubitable,  inalienable  and 
indefeasible  right  to  alter,  reform  or  abolish  govern 
ment  in  such  manner  as  shall  by  that  community  be 
judged  most  conducive  to  the  common  weal."  By 
the  way,  I  like  that  old  expression,  "the  common 
weal."  I  once  used  it  in  the  draft  of  a  plank  in  a 
Democratic  national  platform  and  the  "finishers," 
supposing  that  I  had  made  a  slip  of  the  pen,  changed  it 
to  "commonwealth!" 

This  very  theory  grew  out  of  the  doctrine  of  delegated 
powers  —  the  doctrine  that  all  governmental  power  is 
delegated  by  the  people,  in  whom  it  ultimately  resides;  that 
there  are  rightfully  no  inherent  governmental  powers; 
that  government  is  the  grantee  of  powers,  and  not  the 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  49 

grantor  of  rights;  that  it  is  merely  the  agent,  or  servant, 
of  the  people;  a  trustee  acting  (if  acting  rightly)  for 
the  people,  and  not  for  itself.  Our  forefathers  knew 
the  danger  of  excess  of  government  and  were  bent 
upon  so  simplifying,  limiting  and  checking  it,  that  it 
must  forever  remain  a  servant  and  could  never  become 
a  master.  My  reading  of  history  convinces  me  that 
most  bad  government  has  grown  out  of  too  much 
government.  It  is  a  sort  of  inherent  characteristic 
of  all  government,  as  of  all  conscious  organisms,  yearly 
and  almost  daily,  to  take  to  itself  more  and  more 
jurisdiction,  to  increase  the  force  and  weight  and 
numbers  of  officialdom,  until,  after  a  while,  the  structure 
becomes  topheavy,  and  must  fall  by  its  own  weight; 
or  else,  upon  the  other  hand  —  remaining  administra 
tively  efficient  —  it  holds  the  people  in  servile  sub 
jection.  I  know  of  no  government,  which  has  ever 
once  been  strong  and  then  fallen  (except  where  it  has 
been  conquered  by  outside  force),  that  did  not  go  to 
its  ruin  because  it  had  become  gradually,  even  insidi 
ously,  cumbersome,  topheavy,  unwieldy,  complicated, 
almost  incomprehensible;  in  a  word,  had  assumed  to 
itself  more  powers  than  could  possibly  be  wisely 
administered  by  fallible  men.  Tom  Jefferson  did  not 
attach  a  particle  too  much  importance  to  the  simpli 
fication  of  official  life  and  governmental  machinery. 
In  him,  as  has  been  well  said,  was  "  crystallized  the 
common  American  sentiment." 

The  main  difference  between  Jefferson  and  his 
opponents  —  as  well  as  between  him  and  the  other 
extreme,  Rousseau  and  his  school  —  is  this;  both 
schools  opposed  by  him  contended  that  we  gave  up 

5 


50        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

certain  "natural  rights"  when  we  formed  our  govern 
ment  —  one  to  " government"  and  the  other  to 
majorities.  He  contended  that  the  business  of  govern 
ment  was  to  make  these  natural  rights  more  secure; 
that  its  chief  business  was  to  be  a  fence  around  them 
and  a  bulwark  of  protection  for  them.  In  his  view, 
government  is  not  an  end,  but  a  means  —  a  means  to 
defend  and  increase  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  the 
men  and  women  living  in  the  country  governed,  who, 
however,  are  the  safest,  and  the  only  rightful  guardians 
of  their  own  private  concerns;  that  government  is 
good  in  proportion  as  it  is  responsible  to  and  super- 
visable  by  the  people. 

Jefferson  maintained  truthfully,  too,  I  think,  that 
men  were  divided  politically  into  two  classes;  those 
who  fear  and  distrust  the  people,  and  those  who 
identify  themselves  with  the  people,  as  a  part  of  them. 

I  heard  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson  once  express  it 
very  well  in  designating  the  first  class  as  men,  who 
spoke  of  "the  people"  as  something  outside  —  beyond 
themselves.  There  is  nothing  more  significant  than 
one's  way  of  looking  upon  the  people;  one  man  looks  at 
them  as  an  alien  thing,  and  another  sees  himself  in 
them,  or  perhaps  better,  sees  them  glassed  in  himself. 

In  a  letter  to  Du  Pont  de  Nemours,  which  may  be 
found  in  Jefferson's  "Works,"  Volume  10,  page  23 
(Washington  edition),  we  find  this  language:  "We  both 
love  the  people,  but  you  love  them  as  infants,  whom 
you  are  afraid  to  trust  without  nurses,  and  I  as  adults, 
whom  I  freely  leave  to  self-government." 

Of  course,  no  sincere  man  ever  professed  perfect 
confidence  in  the  people  doing  the  right  thing  at  all 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  51 

times,  but  the  difference  is  one  of  degrees  of  approxi 
mation  to  perfect  and  perpetual  confidence.  Men  like 
Hamilton  habitually  distrusted  the  masses,  because 
they  sincerely  did  not  believe  that  the  masses  had 
brains  enough  to  understand  things,  and  to  do  them. 
They  wanted  strong  government  to  restrain  the  people. 
Men  like  Jefferson  wanted  a  strong  people,  to  restrain 
the  government,  and  knew  that  the  moral  sense,  inborn 
in  men,  has  as  much  to  do  with  right  government  as 
intellect  or  any  other  one  thing. 

The  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  day  upon  which  he  and  John  Adams 
were  destined  each  to  draw  his  last  breath,  was  ap 
proaching.  The  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Washington, 
in  the  name  of  its  citizens,  had  invited  Jefferson  to  be 
present  at  its  celebration  in  that  city.  On  June  24, 
1826,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Mayor,  a  Mr.  Weightman. 
In  that  letter,  speaking  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  he  says:  - 

"May  it  be  to  the  world,  what  I  believe  it  will  be  (to  some  parts 
sooner,  to  others  later,  but  finally  to  all),  the  signal  of  arousing  men 
to  burst  the  chains  under  which  monkish  ignorance  and  superstition 
had  persuaded  them  to  bind  themselves,  and  to  assume  the  blessings 
and  security  of  self-government.  That  form  which  we  have  sub 
stituted  restores  the  free  right  to  the  unbounded  exercise  of  reason 
and  freedom  of  opinion.  All  eyes  are  opened,  or  opening,  to  the 
rights  of  man.  The  general  spread  of  the  light  of  science  has  already 
laid  open  to  every  view  the  palpable  truth,  that  the  mass  of  mankind 
have  not  been  born  with  saddles  on  their  backs,  nor  a  favored  few 
booted  and  spurred,  ready  to  ride  them  legitimately,  and  by  the 
grace  of  God.  There  are  grounds  of  hope  for  others.  For  ourselves, 
let  the  annual  return  of  this  day  forever  refresh  our  recollections 
of  these  rights,  and  inspire  an  undiminished  devotion  to  them." 


52        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Note:  It  is  the  " Rights  of  Man"  yet,  as  in  his  youth- 
It  is  no  " glittering  generality"  to  him.  God  grant 
that  it  may  never  be  so  to  us! 

This  again  indicates  how  Jefferson's  mind  inevitably 
refused  to  confine  its  vision,  when  contemplating  the 
blessings  of  liberty  and  democracy,  to  Americar 
territory,  and  how  invariably  it  wandered  out  to  the 
utmost  confines  of  the  earth,  wherever  there  were  men 
with  rights  to  assert  and  with  duties  to  perform.  His 
was,  in  the  broadest  and  finest  sense,  a  world-democ 
racy.  He  appreciated,  too,  what  few  men  appreciated, 
when  he  wrote  them,  that  the  broad  abstract  expres 
sions  of  the  Declaration  constituted  a  logos;  a  word  tc 
go  out,  a  germ  to  grow  rather  than  a  statute  presently 
to  demark. 

Like  so  many  old  men,  when  dying,  his  mind  went 
back  to  the  scenes  of  activity  in  which  he  had  beer 
engaged  in  his  early  manhood.  Partially  arising  in  the 
bed,  and  using  his  right  hand,  as  if  writing  upon  a 
tablet  held  in  his  left,  he  exclaimed:  "Warn  the  com 
mittee  to  be  on  the  alert!"  It  was  like  Stonewall  Jack 
son's  exclamation,  "Order  A.  P.  Hill  to  prepare  for 
action!"  "Warn  the  committee  to  be  on  the  alert!" 
What  committee?  Doubtless,  one  of  the  old  committees 
of  safety  of  the  revolutionary  day,  who  not  only  con 
stituted  a  provisional  government,  but  exercised 
disciplinary  authority  over  the  disaffected  and  the 
disloyal,  and  whose  duty  it  was  to  defeat  any  counter 
revolutionary  movements  or  combinations.  "The  rul 
ing  passion  was  strong  in  death,"  and  we  may  be 
sure  that  Jefferson's  right  hand  had  written  many  a 
message  similar  to  this  last  exclamation. 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  53 

Mr.  Merriam  informs  us  that  "by  the  later  thinkers 
the  idea  that  men  possess  inherent  and  inalienable 
rights  of  a  political  or  quasi-political  character,  which 
are  independent  of  the  state,  has  been  generally  given 
up."  Pity  it  is,  if  true!  He  adds  in  another  place  that 
"the  present  tendency  in  American  political  theory  is 
to  disregard  the  once  dominant  ideas  of  natural  rights 
and  of  the  social  contract,  although  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  political  scientists  are  more  agreed  upon  this 
point  than  is  the  general  public."  I  should  hope  so! 
I  would  hate  to  see  the  idea  prevail  among  the  people 
that  liberties  are  a  grant  of  government,  instead  of 
government  being  a  delegation  of  power  by  the  people, 
and  I  predict  it  never  will  until  the  downfall  of  this 
"Republic  of  Lesser  Republics." 

Some  of  the  latter-day  political  "scientists"  seem 
to  want  the  world  governed  by  experts.  One  of  them 
speaks  of  a  "central  academy  of  science,  which  shall 
stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  control  of  men,  in 
which  a  polytechnic  institute  stands  to  the  control  of 
nature!"  In  other  words,  individual  rights  and 
liberties  are  to  count  for  nothing  in  comparison  with 
scientific  efficiency  of  bureaucratic  administration. 
One  of  them  does  admit  that  "social  interference" 
(that  is,  governmental  interference)  "should  not  be  so 
paternal,  as  to  check  the  self-extinction  of  the  morally 
ill-constituted;  .  .  .  nor  should  it  so  limit  the  struggle 
for  existence,  as  to  nullify  the  selective  process." 
Thank  God  for  small  favors!  The  right  of  self- 
extinguishment  at  least  is  still  left  us  by  college  govern 
mental  scientists! 

These  people,  it  seems  to  me,  forget  the  two  great- 


54        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

est  of  facts  —  God  and  The  Man.  They  forget  the 
Individual,  who  is  born  and  comes  into  the  world,  and 
who  dies  and  goes  out  of  it  alone,  with  no  company 
save  the  Divine  Individuality.  However,  I  suppose  a 
reference  to  that  is  "  unscientific." 

There  is  an  American  political  theory,  right  or  wrong, 
and  it  is  Jefferson's  theory.  When  he  overcame  the 
Counter-Revolution,  he  made  it  ours  by  a  new  birth  — 
a  regeneration. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that  no  new  party  has  broken 
away  from  the  old  ones  without  founding  itself  allegedly 
upon  the  views  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  doctrines 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  that  just  in 
the  measure  that  old  parties  desert  them,  just  in  that 
measure  can  you  forecast  their  defeat.  This  was  the 
case,  of  course,  with  Democratic-Republicans  —  the 
party  founded  by  Jefferson.  It  was  the  pretention  of 
the  early  Whigs.  It  was  the  assertion  of  the  early 
Republicans,  and  notably  of  Abraham  Lincoln;  and  it 
is  curious  that  in  the  so-called  "Bull  Moose"  Con 
vention —  during  this  year,  Jefferson's  portrait  was 
hung  conspicuously  high,  and  the  party  pretended 
to  draw  faith  from  him,  notwithstanding  all  the 
sneering  and  unjust  things  that  had  been  written  about 
Jefferson  by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  its  candidate.  This 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  a  summary  expres 
sion,  in  Jefferson's  words  and  manner,  of  what  had 
become  the  common  and  characteristic  thought  of  a 
majority  of  the  American  people,  and  was  intensely 
his  own.  It  remains  the  common  thought  of  the 
American  people,  and  constitutes  the  Soul-Politic, 
which  dwells  within  and  animates  and  energizes  our 
Body-Politic. 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  55 

The  salient  points  of  this  theory  are:  first,  natural, 
inalienable,  God-given  individual  rights  —  "the  things 
of  the  first  table;"  secondly,  local  self-government, 
with  most  numerous  and  important  powers  conferred 
upon  that  part  of  the  government,  which  is  nearest  the 
individual  citizen  —  with  less  and  less  power  delegated 
to  each  other  government  which  controls  him,  in  pro 
portion  as  it  is  further  away;  until  finally,  the  least  of 
all  jurisdiction  is  delegated  to  that  government,  which 
is  most  distant  from  him  and  which  he  can  watch  least 
well,  and  which  can  know  least  well  his  wants  and 
interests. 

The  Jeffersonian  theory  involves  a  distinct  demar 
cation  between  state  and  national  powers.  It  involves, 
yes,  necessitates,  an  educational  system  to  inform  a 
public  opinion,  which  shall  thereby  become  fit  to  rule 
and  govern.  To  this  I  shall  refer  later. 

None  of  the  attacks  upon  democracy,  based  upon  the 
errors  and  impulses  and  the  wild  passions  of  revolution 
ists  in  France,  South  America,  or  elsewhere,  has  ever 
for  long  shaken  the  American  people's  confidence  in 
their  doctrine. 

It  is  curious  that,  while  American  writers  have 
deceived  themselves  so  much  about  the  source  of  the 
principles  which  actuated  Thomas  Jefferson,  referring 
many  of  his  opinions  back  to  the  French  philosophers, 
etc.,  the  French  writers,  as  a  rule,  make  no  such  mistake. 
Cornelius  de  Witt,  who  had  made  some  study  of  our 
revolutionary  period,  says:  — 

"Sauf  Montesquieu,  nos  e*crivains  y  e*taient  peu  lus  et  peu  cite*s. 
Coke,  Milton,  Locke,  Grotius,  et  surtout  la  Bible,  la  grande  charte, 
le  common  law,  Phistoire  d'Angleterre,  les  chartes  et  les  histoires 


56        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

locales,  telles  furent  les  autorite*s  qu'  invoquerent  les  tribuns,  les 
pre*dicateurs  et  les  pamphle"taires  qui  exciterent  le  peuple  ame*ricain  a 
combattre  pour  ses  droits.  Je  n'ai  jamais  recontre*  dans  leur  bouche, 
ni  le  nom  de  Rousseau,  ni  Fexpression  du  souverainete*  du  peuple." 

2.      IN   FRANCE 

How  much  influence  Jefferson  had  upon  the  actors 
in  the  early  stages  of  the  French  Revolution  nobody  will 
ever  know.  Both  the  modesty  of  the  man  and  his 
delicate  situation  as  Minister  to  France  prevented  his 
telling  it.  But  on  July  9,  1789,  the  Duke  of  Dorset, 
British  Ambassador  at  Paris,  wrote  to  the  Prime 
Minister:  "Mr.  Jefferson,  the  American  Ambassador 
at  this  court,  has  been  a  great  deal  consulted  by  the 
principal  leaders  of  the  Tiers  Etat;  and  I  have  great 
reason  to  think  that  it  is  owing  to  his  advice  that  the 
order  called  itself  L'Assemblee  Nationale."  If  so, 
this  was  the  initial  step,  without  taking  which  the 
Third  Estate  and  democracy  were  lost.  It  was 
the  sine  qua  non  of  all  that  came  after. 

In  a  letter  to  Madison  in  1789,  Jefferson  speaks  of  the 
French  revolutionists  regarding  us  as  "a  model  for 
their  imitation,"  and  says:  "Our  [authority]  has  been 
treated  like  that  of  the  Bible,  open  to  explanation,  but 
not  to  question." 

The  American  Revolution  had  been  in  a  double  sense 
one  of  the  causes  of  the  French  Revolution.  First,  it 
sent  back  to  France  besides  private  soldiers,  who  had 
opened  wide  their  eyes  at  the  spectacle  of  a  country 
without  nobility  or  peasants,  also  young  captains  and 
colonels  and  majors  and  a  few  generals  even  —  gen 
erally  of  the  poorer  nobility  —  who  had  caught  the 
American  spirit  and  found  it  incompatible  with  the 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  57 

ancien  regime  and  preferable  to  it.  But  it  was  a  cause 
of  the  French  Revolution  in  another  and  sadder  sense. 
The  American  war  had  cost  the  court  of  France  a  great 
deal  of  money,  had  contributed  to  the  consumption  of 
its  funds  on  hand,  almost  to  the  destruction  of  its 
credit. 

We  may  imagine  how  Jefferson,  whose  Declaration 
of  Independence,  whose  "  Summary  View,"  whose  pre 
amble  to  the  Virginia  Constitution,  whose  statute  of 
Religious  Freedom,  and,  finally,  whose  liberal  senti 
ments  scattered  here  and  there  in  the  "  Notes  on  Vir 
ginia  "  had  made  him  a  forerunner  in  the  expression  and 
advocacy  of  "the  rights  of  man,"  became  the  con- 
sultee  and  counsellor  of  the  so-called  patriotic  party. 
His  habit  of  arriving  at  political  principles  by  deduction, 
while  also  relying  on  legal  and  historical  authority,  was 
a  habit  which  he  carried  to  France  and  did  not  bring 
away  from  there,  except  in  the  shape  in  which  he  had 
carried  it.  The  former  is  a  Celtic  trait.  Jefferson  was 
Welsh  —  a  Celt.  But  it  did  not  turn  his  head.  In  fact, 
his  advice  to  the  French  revolutionists  —  to  Lafayette 
especially  —  was  upon  much  more  conservative  lines 
than  any  declaration  of  policy  ever  made  by  him  in 
America,  than  any  political  act  of  his  in  America. 
In  France,  as  in  America,  he  reasoned  that  the  best 
attainable  should  be  procured,  and  he  realized  that 
the  best  attainable  in  France  at  that  time  was  far,  far, 
behind  the  best  attainable  in  America.  Cornelius  de 
Witt  says  that  "it  was  in  Paris  Jefferson  learned  to 
abhor  the  whole  social  organization  of  Europe  and 
everything  appertaining  to  it  still  existing  in  America; 
it  was  in  Paris  that  he  learned  to  hate  the  power  both 


58        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  the  aristocracy  and  clergy,  which  till  then  he  had 
opposed  without  any  irritation."  And  Hazen,  in  his 
"Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  French  Revolution/7  says 
that,  after  his  stay  in  France,  his  utterances  became 
"not  the  sober  thought  of  a  judge,  but  rather  the  war 
cry  of  the  republican  militant." 

Through  it  all,  he  seems  to  have  seen  clearly  that  for 
which  the  French  people  were  "ripe,"  to  use  his  favorite 
word.  Jefferson  knew  the  great  truth,  that  a  given 
thing  may  be  a  bad  thing  for  one  place  and  time,  and  a 
good  thing  for  another.  Hence  he  advised  the  British 
model  as  a  working  initiative  government  for  the 
French,  while  he  afterwards  in  America  spent  his  whole 
life  denouncing  the  same  model,  as  a  thoroughly  unfit 
thing  for  the  American  people,  who  had  long  since 
passed  the  stage  of  growth,  when  that  suit  of  clothes 
could  fit  them.  I  find  no  more  inconsistency  in  this 
than  in  a  physician's  giving  a  delirium  tremens  patient 
moderate  doses  of  whiskey,  that  he  may  not  die  from 
shock  to  his  system,  by  sudden  change. 

Those  who  dwell  upon  the  failure  of  the  French 
Revolution  to  accomplish  step-by-step  progress  without 
violence,  and  call  Jefferson  a  doctrinaire,  because  he 
hoped  it,  forget  that  the  experiment  was  tried  under 
more  unfavorable  circumstances  than  perhaps  a  similar 
experiment  was  ever  tried  anywhere  else.  In  a  bread 
famine,  during  an  unprecedented  cold  winter,  amidst 
the  clash  of  arms,  with  desperate  and  reckless  traitors 
to  be  put  down  at  home,  it  would  have  been  a  miracle, 
if  an  untrained  crew  upon  the  ship  "Institutional 
Reform"  had  been  held  in  discipline. 

Up  to  the  time  that  Jefferson  left  France,  there  was 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  59 

doubt,  of  course,  and  apprehension  of  failure,  which  he 
himself  expressed,  but  there  was  no  reason  to  despair  of 
a  successful  issue. 

Hazen  concludes  that  Jefferson  "  sailed  for  home  with 
the  conviction  that  within  a  year  one  of  the  greatest  of 
recorded  revolutions  would  have  been  effected  without 
bloodshed."  This  is  inaccurate.  Had  he  said,  "with 
the  hope,"  instead  of  "with  the  conviction,"  he  would 
have  been  right,  for  Jefferson's  letters  from  France  are 
full  of  expressions  of  uneasiness  and  apprehension. 
Hazen  adds:  "And  when  the  bloodshed  began  in  grim 
earnest,  he  refused  to  see  its  significance,  minimized  its 
importance,  and  was  reluctant  to  believe  that  a  beautiful 
dream  might  become  a  hideous,  repulsive  monstrosity." 
If  all  this  were  true,  it  would  not  be  to  Jefferson's 
discredit.  But  it  is  not  true.  He  did  see  its  sig 
nificance;  he  did  regret  its  necessary  bearing;  he  did  see 
the  present  "hideous,  repulsive  monstrosity,"  but  he 
saw  something  behind  it,  or  rather  ahead  of  it.  He 
saw  the  ultimate  issue  —  liberty  and  a  new  era  —  not 
only  for  France,  but  for  the  European  race.  He 
minimized  the  "present  hideousness"  only  in  the 
sense  that  he  thought  the  ultimate  result  was  worth 
purchasing,  even  at  the  cost  of  such  days  of  terror,  as 
seemed  in  the  providence  of  God  necessary  to  be 
endured,  in  order  to  topple  over  despotism,  special 
privilege,  priestcraft,  and  all  forms  of  rule  by  the 
"booted  and  spurred,"  trained  to  believe  that  the 
masses  of  mankind  are  "bridled  and  saddled."  Most 
of  us  see  now  what  Jefferson  saw  then,  and  what  Burke 
did  not,  and  Adams  did  not,  and  Hamilton  did  not  see. 
He  was  one  of  the  very  few  well-born,  wealthy  and 


60        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

respected  men  in  America  to  see  it  then.  Not  as  many 
lives  were  lost  by  the  guillotine  as  in  many  a  single 
battle,  fought  about  next  to  nothing  and  in  some  few 
battles  fought  to  maintain  the  amour  propre  of  a  king's 
mistress.  Nor  were  there  as  many  lives  lost  by  the 
guillotine,  probably,  as  many  a  single  generation  of 
kings  and  nobles  and  priests  had  snuffed  out,  in  an 
equal  length  of  time,  as  the  result  of  poverty,  neglect, 
insanitation,  and  overtaxation,  caused  by  general  mis- 
government. 

Jefferson  saw  all  this  —  all  honor  to  him  for  having 
seen  it,  and  for  having  refused  to  permit  himself  and 
his  followers  in  America  to  be  dragged  into  a  senseless 
American  counter-revolution,  because  a  people  blindly 
and  brutally  striving  for  liberty  in  France  had  tempo 
rarily  failed,  and  had  failed  no  more  by  their  own 
ignorance  and  cruelty,  than  by  the  hostile  coalescence 
of  kings,  and  of  beneficiaries  of  special  privilege,  all 
over  Europe.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the 
domestic  violence  in  France  was  but  a  protest  —  blind, 
unreasoning,  barbarous  —  but  still  a  protest,  against 
this  coalescence  between  privileged  enemies  of  popular 
right  at  home  and  the  beneficiaries  of  monarchical, 
aristocratic,  and  plutocratic  privilege  abroad  —  kings, 
nobles,  ecclesiastics,  and  fund-holders.  Truly  Jefferson 
came  back  from  France  "a  republican  militant." 
Happy  for  us  that  he  was  in  France,  so  to  come  back! 

A  letter  to  Mr.  Short,  dated  January  3,  1793,  shows 
how  Jefferson,  unlike  so  many  other  intelligent  men  in 
America  and  in  England,  saw,  beyond  the  struggle  and 
the  bloodshed,  to  the  hoped-for  issue  itself  —  saw  the 
things  that  were  to  be  permanent  and  not  temporary. 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  61 

After  describing  how  the  French  people  had  become 
Jacobins  by  the  almost  necessary  stress  and  drive  of 
circumstance,  he  says:  — 

"In  the  struggle,  which  was  necessary,  many  guilty  persons 
fell  without  the  forms  of  trial,  and  with  them  some  innocent. 
These  I  deplore  as  much  as  anybody,  and  shall  deplore  some  of 
them  to  the  day  of  my  death.  But  I  deplore  them,  as  I  should 
have  done  had  they  fallen  in  battle.  It  was  necessary  to  use  the 
arm  of  the  people  —  a  machine  not  quite  so  blind  as  balls  and 
bombs  —  but  blind  to  a  certain  degree.  A  few  of  their  cordial 
friends  met  at  their  hands  the  fate  of  enemies.  But  time  and  truth 
will  rescue  and  embalm  their  memory,  while  their  posterity  will 
be  enjoying  that  very  liberty  for  which  they  would  never  have 
hesitated  to  offer  up  their  lives.  The  liberty  of  the  whole  earth  was 
depending  upon  the  issue  of  that  contest.  Was  ever  such  a  prize  won 
with  so  little  innocent  blood? " 

By  this  time  Gouverneur  Morris  was  in  Paris  and  was 
becoming  very  " properly "  " disgusted"  with  the  fact 
that  " booksellers  and  venders  of  skins  and  grocers" 
were  being  placed  in  civil  office!  It  was  not  to  be 
long  before  John  Adams  would  in  America  voice  this 
same  high-flown  contempt  for  common  folks.  We 
find  Mr.  Morris  about  this  time  —  at  least  his  Memoir 
says  so  —  urging  Lafayette  "to  preserve,  if  possible, 
some  constitutional  authority  to  the  body  of  the 
nobles,  as  the  one  means  of  preserving  any  liberty  for 
the  people."  Isn't  that  "going  some"  for  an  Ameri 
can,  who  almost  thus  far  had  been  getting  on  very  well 
without  having  ever  met  a  nobleman,  except  of  the 
God-made  sort?  We  find  him  commenting  unfavorably 
upon  the  fact  that  "Jefferson,  with  all  the  leaders  of 
liberty  here,  is  desirous  of  annihilating  distinctions  of 


62        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

order"!  This  was  not  quite  true,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
because  Jefferson  had  not  yet  thought  it  wise  to  go  that 
far  in  France.  He  was  emphatically  urging,  however, 
the  withdrawal  of  the  hurtful  special  privileges  of  the 
clergy  and  nobility,  which  exempted  them  from  taxation 
and  made  all  the  heavy  services  and  taxes  fall  upon  the 
poor. 

Jefferson  did  not  confide  in  Morris,  who  knew  nothing 
of  what  he  wanted.  At  that  very  tune  and  up  to  the 
day  he  left  France  he  believed  that  France  was  not 
yet  ready  for  anything  more  than  a  limited  consti 
tutional  monarchy.  As  late  as  November  18,  1788,  he 
says,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Madison  speaking  of  the  French 
people:  "The  misfortune  is  that  they  are  not  yet  ripe 
to  receive  the  blessings  to  which  they  are  entitled." 

He,  nearly  first  of  all  English-speaking  great  men, 
saw  the  immense  influence  of  the  example  of  France 
upon  the  civilization  of  the  world.  He  writes:  "I  con 
sidered  a  successful  reformation  of  government  in 
France  as  insuring  a  general  reformation  through 
Europe,  and  the  resurrection  to  new  life  of  their  people 
now  ground  to  dust  by  the  abuses  of  the  governing 
powers."  Long  afterwards  it  came  to  be  a  generally 
recognized  fact  that  convulsions  in  France  were  always 
followed  by  convulsions  all  over  Europe  —  as  in  1830 
and  1848. 

It  was  doubtful  if,  in  advising  an  understanding  with 
the  court,  on  the  limited  monarchy  basis,  Jefferson  was 
wise.  The  fight  had  by  now  gone  too  far.  It  had 
recently  become  evident  that  the  sincerity  of  the 
court  and  of  the  courtiers  simply  could  not  be  relied 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  63 

upon.  The  people  were  compelled  to  do  one  of  two 
things,  and  they  soon  realized  the  fact  —  either  desist 
from  their  struggle  for  liberty,  or  else  intimidate  the 
aristocracy. 

The  charter  which,  at  the  request  of  some  of  the 
patriotic  party,  he  drew  up,  can  be  found  in  his  works, 
either  edition.  It  was  an  immense  step  forward  for  the 
French  people. 

Gouverneur  Morris  and  Jefferson  never  did  each  other 
justice.  They  were  men  so  far  apart  in  temperament 
and  in  political  creed  that  it  was  well  nigh  impossible. 
Morris  was  cynical,  sneering,  distrustful  of  every  sort 
of  elevating  sentiment  —  the  hard,  practical  man  of 
affairs;  —  fond  of  speculation,  withal  —  yet  acute;  — 
honest,  but  utterly  incapable  of  believing  that  anybody 
professing  a  faith  in  the  rule  of  the  masses  of  the  people 
could  be  otherwise  than  hypocritical.  Jefferson  was 
as  we  know  him  to  be. 

Jefferson  saw  clearly  the  real  causes  of  the  French 
Revolution  —  saw  too  that  its  excesses  were  not  to  be 
charged  solely  to  the  passions  and  cruel  vengeance  and 
ignorance  of  the  people,  but  in  just  proportion  also  to 
the  long  oppression  which  had  preceded  and  produced 
their  ignorance,  and  to  the  almost  fiendish  contempt 
for  the  people,  which  had  had  its  result  in  arousing 
avenging  passions  against  the  noblesse  who  enter 
tained  it.  Carlyle  afterwards,  partially,  and  Charles 
Dickens,  very  clearly,  saw  what  Jefferson  did,  but 
neither  quite  as  sympathetically.  How  clearly  he  saw 
it  all  would  be,  if  I  had  space  or  time,  worth  demon 
strating  at  the  risk  of  tediousness. 


64        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

When,  on  the  4th  of  August,  the  National  Assembly 
abolished  all  class  privileges,  Jefferson  says:  "Thus 
there  went  down  at  one  sweeping  blow  all  titles  of 
rank,  all  the  abusive  privileges  of  feudalism,  the  tithes 
and  casuals  of  the  clergy,  all  provincial  privileges. " 
Then  the  Declaration  of  Rights  was  adopted,  and  then 
a  committee  appointed  to  draft  a  constitution,  and  then 
that  most  extraordinary  compliment  paid  to  Mr. 
Jefferson,  when  the  chairman  of  this  committee  wrote 
him  a  letter,  dated  July  20th,  requesting  him  to  "assist" 
at  their  deliberations.  Of  course,  Jefferson  knew 
better  the  duties  of  an  ambassador  than  to  take  any 
such  open  and  public  part  in  the  formation  of  the 
constitution  of  a  country,  to  the  court  of  which  he  was 
accredited.  It  shows,  nevertheless,  the  remarkable 
influence  of  the  man,  which  was  demonstrated  through 
out  his  life,  wherever  he  happened  to  be. 

Here  Jefferson  ceased  to  be  a  spectator  of  the  great 
European  drama.  It  will  be  noted  that  it  was  before 
the  great  excesses  which  shocked  the  civilized  world 
had  occurred. 

Parton  says,  in  his  "Jefferson's  Return  From  France" 
—  Atlantic  Monthly,  1872  —  and  I  am  glad  to  find 
somebody  who  agrees  with  me  about  that :  — 

"The  narrative  of  events  written  by  Jefferson  in  extreme  old 
age,  brief,  cold  and  colorless  as  it  is,  taken  in  connection  with  his 
numerous  letters,  official  and  private,  written  at  the  time,  will  be 
prized  by  the  individual,  who  will,  at  length,  evolve  the  French 
Revolution  from  the  chaos  of  material  in  which  it  is  now  involved. 
Unfortunately,  Jefferson  went  too  far  in  extirpating  his  egotism. 
He  was  not  vain  enough;  he  was  curiously  reticent  concerning  his 
own  part  in  important  events;  he  instinctively  veiled  them  and  his 


THE  REVOLUTIONIST  65 

personality.  But  for  this,  he  might  have  found  time  in  his  busy 
retirement,  to  compose  a  history  of  the  Revolution  down  to  the 
taking  of  the  Bastille,  which  would  have  been  of  imperishable  interest. 
It  was  not  merely  that  he  knew  the  men  and  witnessed  the  events, 
but  he  preserved  his  incredulity,  accepted  nothing  upon  mere  rumor, 
and  personally  investigated  occurrences.  If  a  rumor  reached  him 
that  'three  thousand  people  had  fallen  in  the  streets/  he  and  his 
secretary,  Mr.  Short,  would  go  to  the  spot,  and,  after  minute  inquiry, 
reduce  the  number  to  'three/  He  was  unwearied  in  sifting  out  the 
interminable  sessions  of  the  various  assemblies,  and  thought  little 
of  riding  to  Versailles  '  to  satisfy  myself  of  what  has  passed  there, 
for  nothing  can  be  believed  ("here")  but  what  one  sees  or  has 
from  an  eye  witness.'" 

Jefferson  had  been  in  constant  association  with  the 
chief  spirits,  who  constituted  the  moderate  monarchical, 
and  the  moderate  republican,  membership  of  the 
French  legislative  body.  He  supplied  them  with  books 
and  literature,  wrote  for  them  a  discourse  on  the  jury 
system,  recommending  it  because  it  gave  an  "  infusion 
of  the  people  in  the  transaction  of  affairs/7  which  was 
"necessary  to  the  preservation  of  purity." 

In  connection  with  Jefferson's  views  of  the  French 
Revolution,  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  had  studied 
and  understood  the  condition  of  the  French  people  as  well 
as  the  follies  of  their  government;  that  he  had  "felt  of 
their  beds  to  see  how  they  slept;"  that  he  had  "looked 
into  their  pots"  to  see  if  there  were  soup  or  fowl  in 
them;  that  he  was  in  a  better  position,  than  any  other 
American  of  his  day,  to  make  due  allowance  for  the 
excesses  which  after  his  departure  ran  riot  amongst  a 
sorely  provoked  people  —  a  people,  who,  in  addition 
to  the  drawback  of  inexperience  in  self-government,  had 
had  the  hot  iron  of  contempt  and  oppression  thrust 
6 


66        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

into  them  and  turned  around  in  the  wound,  until  their 
hearts  were  aflame  with  a  spirit  of  revenge,  as  well  as 
with  a  desire  for  their  share  of  the  earth's  freedom  and 
happiness.  Most  Americans  put  the  French  in  their 
own  positions  and  judged  them  accordingly.  Jefferson 
tried  to  put  himself  in  their  place,  and  did  it  very  well — 
considering  that  he  was  philosophe  and  they  were 
enragees. 


CHAPTER  III 

JEFFERSON    THE    DEMOCRATIZER   OF    STATE 
INSTITUTIONS 

1.      A   STATE   MADE   OVER 

I  DOUBT  if  there  is  anything  sweeter  in  Mr.  Jefferson's 
life  than  what  he  says  in  his  Autobiography  in  the 
following  modest  way :  — 

"I  have  sometimes  asked  myself  whether  my  country  is  better 
for  my  having  lived  at  all.  I  do  not  know  that  it  is;  I  have  been 
the  instrument  of  doing  the  following  things;  but  they  would  have 
been  done  by  others,  some  of  them,  perhaps,  a  little  better." 

Then  there  follows  a  reference  to  four  great  measures 
—  three  of  which  were  afterwards  inscribed  on  his 
tomb,  the  other  being  the  abolition  of  primogeniture 
and  entail. 

Note  that  the  things  he  took  most  pride  in  were  all, 
save  one  —  the  authorship  of  the  Declaration  —  state, 
not  federal,  acts.  Note  the  same  fact  in  the  inscription 
chosen  by  him  for  his  tomb:  " Author  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  and  of  the  Virginia  Statute  for 
Freedom  of  Religion  and  Father  of  the  University  of 
Virginia." 

It  has  been  a  sort  of  fashion  to  speak  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  as  a  " theorist,"  "doctrinaire,"  and  all  that. 
Very  few  people  know  how  great  he  was  as  a  con 
structive  statesman  —  a  legislator.  In  the  first  place, 
Mr.  Jefferson  was  an  excellent  lawyer  —  not  a  great 

67 


68        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

advocate,  because  he  was  never  an  orator,  nor  even  a 
very  great  debater.  His  vocal  defects,  as  noted  else 
where,  prevented  this. 

He  was  only  thirty-three,  when  he  resigned  from 
Congress  and  went  back  to  Virginia,  there  to  begin  his 
wonderful  work  of  political  and  social  and  industrial 
reconstruction.  His  reason  for  it  is  best  given  in  his 
own  language:  — 

"When  I  left  Congress  in  1776,  it  was  in  the  persuasion  that  our 
whole  code  must  be  revised,  adapted  to  our  republican  form  of 
government,  and,  now  that  we  had  no  negations  of  councils,  gover 
nors  and  kings  to  restrain  us  from  doing  right,  that  it  should  be 
corrected  in  all  its  parts,  with  a  single  eye  to  reason,  and  the  good 
of  those  for  whose  government  it  was  formed." 

Every  law  that  he  introduced  was  in  itself  a  refor 
mation,  far  reaching  in  its  ends,  conservative  in  its 
methods.  Let  us  run  over,  rapidly,  the  acts  of  con 
structive  legislation,  of  which  he  was  the  author,  leaving 
details  as  to  their  bearing,  effect,  origin,  or  date  of 
passage  to  later  comment :  j\.n  act  defining  treason,  and 
abolishing  corruption  of  blood  as  a  part  of  its  punish 
ment,  thus  refraining  from  visiting  upon  the  heads  of 
the  innocent  the  guilt  of  the  offender;  one  defining 
citizenship,  being  the  first  legislative  assertion  in  the 
world  of  the  right  of  expatriation,  the  first  denial  of  the 
doctrine  of  indefeasible  allegiance,  under  which  kings 
claimed  men's  bodies  and  services  for  life  and  defied 
the  natural  right  of  the  individual  to  adopt  a  new 
country.  This  has  since  become  an  American  principle. 
His  acts  abolishing  estates  tail;  abolishing  primo 
geniture;  establishing  freedom  of  religion;  his  bill, 
which  failed  to  be  fully  enacted,  establishing  a  thorough 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        69 

system  of  education;  the  magnificent  preamble  to  the 
first  constitution  of  the  State  of  Virginia;  the  bill  of 
1784  for  the  government  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
the  precedent  for  our  territorial  system  of  government; 
his  bills,  which  became  law^for  the  simplification  of  the 
court  system  of  Virginia;  his  act  prohibiting  the 
importation  of  slaves  into  Virginia;  his  amendment  for 
the  emancipation  and  deportation  of  slaves,  which 
failed,  it  is  true,  but  barely  failed;  the  laws  for  the 
establishment  of  a  State  University,  all  of  which  he 
drafted;  his  bills  reforming  the  criminal  laws  of  the 
State  of  Virginia,  and  abolishing  the  barbarous  practice 
of  drawing  and  quartering;  his  protest  against  the 
revolting  feature  of  the  lex  talionis;  the  removal,  under 
his  recodification,  from  the  Virginia  \  criminal  laws 
of  the  death  penalty  in  twenty-seven  cases  —  in  all 
cases  except  treason  and  murder  —  a  third  of  a  century 
or  more  before  the  great  English  law  reformers,  amongst 
whom  Romilly  stood  first,  succeeded  in  reaching  a  like 
result  in  Great  Britain.  All  of  these  things  were  not 
the  promises  of  a  theorist,  but  the  accomplishments  of 
a  practical  constructive  statesman. '  The  multifari- 
ousness  of  his  work  is  equalled  in  credit  to  him  by  the 
lucidity  of  the  language  in  which  it  was  dressed.  How 
many  of  them  were  the  first  examples  of  their  kind? 
The  act  defining  citizenship,  I  have  mentioned;  his 
amelioration  of  brutal  penalties,  the  first  example  of 
that  sort  of  legislative  humaneness  perhaps  anywhere, 
certainly  in  the  English-speaking  world;  his  act  of  '78 
was  the  first  American  law  to  abolish  the  foreign  slave 
trade,  and  became  a  legislative 
-a-^^ItoBas  Jeffeibuii  ^  a  L 


70        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 


.Thomas  flRT 


ligions  1ibexkaag^^rnrnn:^.n  mibnnqinm 

n  fi  rnt,  ny  a.m  p.I^  i  n  ^T^hristTfl;nj*ni  i  n  tr 


j)f  absolute  freedom  of  public  worship,  not  only  for  all 
Christians,  but  for  all  religionists  of  every  sort  — 
guaranteeing  freedom  of  belief  and  freedom  of  worship 
—  cutting  off  all  possible  forms  of  legal  persecution,  and 
all  control  by  the  State  of  either  religious  conviction  or 
religious  observance.*  He  worked  a  reformation  in  his 
tools,  too,  the  law  language,  with  its  "saids"  and  "afore- 
saids"  and  its  endless  tautologies  and  repetitions.  IHe 
himself  gives  a  very  fair  resum6  of  the  most  important 
of  the  legislative  reforms  he  introduced  in  Virginia, 
and  with  accustomed  self-abnegation  and  lack  of  desire 
to  glorify  self,  never  once  mentioning  that  he  —  the 
youngest  of  them  —  was  chairman  of  the  committee 
composed  of  himself,  Edmund  Pendleton,  George 
Wythe,  George  Mason  and  Thomas  Lightfoot  Lee,  and 
that  upon  him  as  chairman  fell  the  main  burden  of  the 
work.  The  fact  is  that  he  and  George  Wythe  sub 
stantially  did  it  all*  -Mr.  Fondle  Lou7  s~part  was-Tecasir- 
2iid"7ef6nneHn55r^^ 

that  Mr.  Pcndloton  iniBiinderstood-^e-prograisraBd 
-still  more     efhato  the  fad  thai  he  was  caltecTaWa 


Randall  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  many,  actu 
ated  by  the  undying  class  hatred  of  Jefferson  and  the 
chronic  desire  to  cheapen  him  in  the  public  estimate, 
afterwards  were  heard  to  say,  that  "that  part  of  the 
revision  performed  by  Pendleton  could  be  distinguished 
by  its  superior  precision."  The  humor  of  this  lies  in 
the  fact  that  Pendleton  did  not  perform  any  part  of 
the  revision. 


DEMOCRATIZE!*,  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        71 

In  the  distribution  made  of  the  work,  all  of  the  com 
mon  law  and  the  British  statutes  down  to  the  fourth 
year  of  James  I  (1607)  —  the  year  of  the  settlement 
of  Jamestown  —  including  all  the  subjects  I  have 
mentioned,  were  committed  to  Mr.  Jefferson  alone. 
The  brevity  and  conciseness  and  succinctness,  as  well 
as  the  clearness  of  expression  of  this  codification,  is 
remarkable.  The  whole  thing  occupied  only  ninety 
folio  pages.  Much  of  what  was  contained  in  the  report 
of  recodification  was  not  enacted  until  later,  but  that 
was  the  size  of  it,  if  it  had  all  been  enacted  at  once. 
Some  parts  of  it,  notably  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
some  features  of  the  slave  code,  were  never  enacted  at 
all,  and  of  his  superb  educational  code,  establishing  a 
complete  system  from  the  A  B  Cs  to  the  crowning 
result  in  a  State  University,  only  the  elementary  school 
part  of  the  last  chapter  was  then  actually  transferred  to 
the  statute  books,  and  it  so  amended  as  to  mar  its 
working  for  years.  The  criminal  code,  as  reported  by 
Mr.  Jefferson,  entitled,  "  A  bill  for  proportioning  crimes 
and  punishments  in  cases  heretofore  capital,"  etc., 
occupied  only  six  pages  octavo,  or,  with  all  the  copious 
notes  and  references  and  the  embodiment  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  laws,  written  in  that  language  and  accompanied 
by  his  own  translation,  took  up  only  thirteen  pages. 

The  following  language  in  the  preamble  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  bill  "for  proportioning  crimes  and  punish 
ments  heretofore  capital"  is  characteristic  of  the  man 
and  of  his  legal  style:  — 

"And  forasmuch  as  the  experience  of  all  ages  and  countries 
hath  shown,  that  cruel  and  sanguinary  laws  defeat  their  own  pur 
pose,  by  engaging  the  benevolence  of  mankind  to  withhold  prose- 


cutions,  to  smother  testimony,  or  to  listen  to  it  with  bias,  when,  if 
the  punishment  were  only  proportioned  to  the  injury,  men  would 
feel  it  their  inclination,  as  well  as  their  duty,  to  see  the  laws  ob 
served.  For  rendering  crimes  and  punishments,  therefore,  more 
proportionate  to  each  other,  Be  it  enacted  by  the  General  Assembly, 
that  no  crimes  shall  be  henceforth  punished  by  deprivation  of  life 
or  limb,  except  those  hereinafter  ordained  to  be  so  punished." 

Jefferson  places  the  defence  of  capital  punishment 
upon  the  only  sensible  ground  that  it  can  rest  on,  if 
on  any,  to  wit:  that  certain  criminals  are  capitally 
punished  for  the  reason  that  their  existence  has  become 
inconsistent  with  the  safety  of  society.  There  is  no 
defence  for  capital  punishment  on  the  ground  that  it 
reforms.  There  is  little  on  the  ground  that  it  deters 
others.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  it  does.  But  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  criminal,  whose  very  existence  and 
the  propagation  of  whose  kind  are  inconsistent  with 
the  welfare  of  society.  In  the  Code  of  Virginia,  as  he 
revised  it,  there  was  to  be  no  conviction  for  treason, 
except  upon  an  overt  act. 

All  this  might  well  be  called  "The  Jefferson  Code. " 

I  know  of  no  higher  tribute  to  him  as  a  successful 

legislator  than  the  following,  which  I  shall  quote  from 

Mr.  Kean's  book,  "Thomas  Jefferson  as  a  Legislator." 

He  says:  — 

"Some  of  the  changes  were  so  radical,  so  novel  in.  the  experience 
of  mankind,  so  far  reaching  in  their  effects  upon  society,  so  difficult 
to  embody  in  statutes  at  once  concise,  simple  and  clear,  that  only 
those  who  have  had  experience  either  in  drafting  important  laws, 
or  in  watching  the  effects  in  their  administration  of  important  stat 
utory  changes,  can  realize  the  difficulty  of  the  undertaking  and 
the  marvellous  skill  and  foresight  with  which  Mr.  Jefferson  wrought 
as  a  legislator.  As  an  illustration  of  this,  it  is  worth  while,  even 


All  U  JL  J.  JL  »J  JL  JLV/X'X  kJ 


to  readers  who  have  no  acquaintance  with  technical  law,  to  consider 
the  Virginia  'statute  of  descents/  This  bill  became  a  law  in 
October,  1785.  .  .  .  These  rules  are  (briefly  stated)  the  common 
law  '  canons  of  descent/  by  which  English  inheritances  were  governed, 
and  largely  are  still. 

"Now,  by  Mr.  Jefferson's  act  in  Virginia,  every  one  of  them  at 
one  stroke  was  swept  away.  The  estate  was  required  to  pass  in 
parcenary  (that  is,  in  equal  shares  where  a  class  of  heirs  come  in), 
first,  to  the  children  and  their  descendants.  This  rooted  up  both 
the  preference  of  males  over  females  and  of  the  oldest  male  over 
the  other  children  of  both  sexes.  If  there  be  no  child  nor  the 
descendant  of  any,  to  the  father,  and  if  no  father,  to  the  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters  and  their  descendants.  If  these  all  be  wanting, 
the  estate  is  divided  into  two  moieties,  one  going  to  the  paternal 
and  the  other  to  the  maternal  kindred,"  etc. 

"Thus  every  shred  of  pre-existing  (English)  law  of  descents  was 
demolished,  and  a  scheme  based  on  new  principles,  contradictory 
to  it,  was  substituted  in  its  place.  The  act  as  adopted  (and  it 
was  adopted  precisely  as  Mr.  Jefferson  drew  it),  consists  of  eighteen 
clauses  and  occupies  a  little  over  a  single  page  in  the  Statute  Book." 

"Now  it  has  not  been  without  definite  purpose  that  so  much  of 
the  substance  of  the  act  has  been  stated,  even  at  the  peril  of  dis 
gusting  the  lay-reader.  It  was  needful  to  illustrate  what  now 
follows.  Under  the  provisions  of  this  new  act,  which  subverted  and 
reversed  all  the  rules  which  had  previously  existed  in  the  State, 
all  the  real  estate  which  has  descended  in  Virginia  to  the  heirs  of 
the  generations  of  a  hundred  years,  has  passed  to  those  entitled  by 
these  provisions.  So  precise,  so  comprehensive  and  exhaustive, 
so  simple  and  clear,  were  the  terms  in  which  they  were  expressed, 
that  in  the  experience  of  a  completed  century  but  one  single  doubt  as 
to  the  construction  and  effect  of  any  part  of  it  has  arisen.  That  single 
doubt  was  resolved  by  the  case  of  Davis  vs.  Rowe,  6  Randolph,  355." 

Mr.  Kean  says  that  as  one  consequence  of  the  wonder 
ful  fairness  and  clearness  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  "  statute  of 
descents  ":  "It  is  much  less  the  rule  for  persons  (in 


74        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Virginia)  to  make  wills,  than  (as  I  believe)  is  the  case 
generally  elsewhere."  "  It  is  a  common  remark  of  men, 
in  whose  families  no  special  cause  for  special  provision 
in  case  of  death  exists,  that "  "the  law  makes  as  good  a 
will  as  they  care  to  have." 

Most  of  these  reforms  in  the  direction  of  adapting 
laws  to  republican  and  democratic  institutions  were 
followed,  more  or  less  awkwardly,  by  the  other  states, 
though  some  of  the  abuses  that  were  abolished  in 
Virginia  lingered  for  years  in  some  of  the  other  states. 

Jefferson's  purpose  in  abolishing  entail  and  primo 
geniture  is  beautifully  expressed  by  him:  — 

"To  annul  this  privilege,  and,  instead  of  an  aristocracy  of  wealth, 
of  more  harm  and  danger  than  benefit  to  society,  to  make  an  opening 
for  the  aristocracy  of  virtue  and  talent,  which  nature  has  wisely 
provided  for  the  direction  of  the  interests  of  society,  and  scattered 
with  equal  hand  through  all  its  conditions,  was  deemed  essential 
to  a  well  ordered  republic." 

Jefferson  sought  to  democratize  not  only  political 
and  social,  but  industrial  conditions.  He  wanted  free 
labor,  as  much  as  free  worship,  or  free  land,  or  equal 
justice  or  equality  in  the  family  and  among  citizens. 
Thus  it  came  about  that  slavery  was  not  compatible 
with  his  doctrine.  Throughout  his  entire  life  he  was 
consistently  and  persistently  opposed  to  it.  It  crops 
out  in  his  "  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British 
America,"  published  in  1775,  in  his  "  Notes  on  Virginia," 
again  in  the  arraignment  of  the  King  for  encouraging 
the  slave  trade  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  as 
originally  drawn  by  him,  and  still  again  in  the  Decla 
ration,  in  that  assertion  —  which  escaped  contempo 
raneous  opposition,  because  it  was  regarded  by  super- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        75 

ficial  and  cynical  critics  as  "a  glittering  generality" — 
of  the  "self  evident  truth"  that  "all  men  are  created 
equal,"  and  "endowed  by  their  Creator  with  .  .  . 
liberty."  With  what  force  Abraham  Lincoln  used  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  his  fight  against  the 
spread  of  slavery  is  well  known,  and  this  too  after  the 
Continental  Congress  had  struck  out  of  the  Declaration 
every  word  which  was  regarded  by  its  members  as 
bearing  directly  on  the  subject. 

Lincoln  said:  "All  honor  to  Jefferson  —  to  the  man 
who,  in  the  concrete  pressure  of  a  struggle  for  national 
independence  by  a  single  people,  had  the  coolness, 
forecast  and  capacity  to  introduce  into  a  mere  revo 
lutionary  document  an  abstract  truth,  applicable  to  all 
men  in  all  times,  and  so  to  embalm  it  there  that  today 
and  in  all  days  to  come  it  shall  be  a  rebuke  and  a 
stumbling  block  to  the  very  harbinger  of  reappearing 
tyranny  and  oppression." 

It  has  been  sometimes  urged  that  Jefferson  was  not 
altogether  consistent  because  he  did  not  emancipate 
his  own  slaves.  Jefferson  was  in  debt  —  the  debt  had 
come  to  him  with  his  wife's  estate  —  and  neither  in  his 
lifetime,  nor  afterwards,  could  he  have  freed  his  or  her 
slaves  from  the  claims  of  his  creditors.  He  did  set 
free,  by  will,  his  household  servants  —  three  or  four  or 
five  of  them,  I  have  forgotten  —  and  in  order  to  do  this, 
he  had  to  beg  in  his  testament  of  the  Legislature  of 
Virginia  the  ratification  of  the  act. 

Jefferson  in  one  of  his  letters  said:  "The  laws  do  not 
permit  us  to  turn  them  loose,  .  .  .  and  to  commute 
them  for  other  property  [that  is,  plainly  to  sell  them] 
is  to  commit  them  to  those  whose  usage  of  them  we 
cannot  control." 


76        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

What  Jefferson  meant  by  saying  "the  laws  do  not 
permit  us  to  turn  them  loose/ '  in  view  of  Randolph's 
emancipation  of  his  slaves  by  will,  of  young  Edward 
Cole's  carrying  his  off  to  Illinois  and  setting  them  free 
there,  and  Professor  Wythe  and  many  others  setting 
theirs  free,  is  obviously  that  the  law  did  not  permit  an 
indebted  man  to  deprive  his  creditors  of  an  assured 
security  for  the  payment  of  their  debts. 

Jefferson  was  the  author  of  the  bill  which  passed  the 
Virginia  Assembly  permitting  slave  owners  —  when 
out  of  debt  —  to  emancipate  their  slaves.  He  was  also 
the  author  of  the  Virginia  bill  forbidding  further 
importation  of  slaves  into  that  State.  One  of  his  very 
last  acts  while  President  was  a  message  sent  to  Congress 
recommending  the  enactment  of  a  law  prohibiting  their 
importation  into  any  port  of  the  Ufiited  States,  so  that 
the  law  could  take  effect  upon  the  first  moment  that 
was  possible  under  the  Constitution,  the  Constitution 
itself  having  forbidden  Congress  to  make  any  law  upon 
the  subject  prior  to  the  year  1808,  and  not  having  re 
quired  it  to  stop  importation  of  slaves  even  then.  He 
had  tried  in  the  Continental  Congress  in  1784  to  exclude 
slavery  not  merely  from  the  Northwest  Territory  as  was 
later  done,  but  from  all  the  territories  of  the  United 
States,  "ceded  or  to  be  ceded,"  had  lost  his  motion  by 
the  vote  of  a  single  State,  and  when  the  matter  is  fully 
analyzed,  really  by  the  vote  of  a  single  delegate  of  a 
single  State,  who,  if  he  had  been  present  instead  of 
absent,  would  have  carried  the  decision  the  other  way. 

I  have  never  seen  it  myself,  but  his  bill,  or  ordinance, 
by  which  slavery  was  to  be  prohibited  in  all  the  terri 
tories  is  said  to  be  in  the  archives  of  the  National  Capitol 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        77 

in  Jefferson's  handwriting.  The  language  used  by  him 
on  this  subject  in  1784,  was  repeated  in  the  ordinance 
of  1787  for  the  government  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
and  part  of  it  is  carried  down  in  the  Thirteenth  Amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

I  haven't  space  to  give  it  here,  but  I  would  ask  the 
reader  to  peruse  Jefferson's  letter  to  Edward  Coles, 
dated  August  25,  1814.  It  expresses  more  nearly  than 
any  other  one  document  his  views  on  slavery,  and 
exhibits  that  singular  melange  of  radicalism  as  to  aim, 
and  conservatism  as  to  means,  which  characterized  the 
man.  One  part  of  it,  I  must  quote:  "My  opinion  has 
ever  been  that  until  more  can  be  done  for  them,  we 
should  endeavor  with  those  whom  fortune  has  thrown 
in  our  hands,  to  feed  and  clothe  them  well,  to  protect 
them  from  ill-usage,  require  such  reasonable  labor  only 
as  is  performed  voluntarily  by  freemen,  and  be  led  by 
no  repugnances  to  abdicate  them,  and  our  duties  to 
them."  Then  follows  the  language  which  I  have 
already  quoted:  "The  laws  do  not  permit  us  to  turn 
them  loose,  etc."  It  was  harder  to  be  a  good  master 
then,  than  it  was  to  emancipate  a  lot  of  ignorant, 
and  for  the  most  part  foolish  creatures  —  welcome 
nowhere  —  unable  to  take  care  of  themselves  and  with 
nobody  under  obligations  to  take  care  of  them.  With 
an  emancipation  universal  —  as  it  was  when  it  finally 
came  — these  difficulties  were  for  the  most  part  obviated, 
but  to  turn  a  whole  race  free,  under  conditions  such  that 
their  labor  must  be  sought  and  paid  for,  is  a  different 
thing  from  turning  a  few  free  to  be  unwelcome  every 
where  as  men  and  impossible  as  laborers  —  to  be  ob 
jects  of  suspicion  as  "free  niggers"  and  possibly  victims 


78        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  kidnapping  by  rough  men  and  of  sale  into  slavery  a 
half  of  a  thousand  miles  or  more  away. 

Most  of  the  free  states  forbade  their  residence;  they 
did  not  fit  into  the  system  in  the  slave  states. 

As  Jefferson  said  later:  "We  have  the  wolf  by  the 
ears.  It  is  equally  difficult  to  hold  him  and  to  turn  him 
loose." 

I  think  one  of  the  best  pictures  of  the  difficulties  of 
those  whose  "consciences  bore  witness  against  slavery/' 
but  who  still  owned  slaves,  and  who  attempted  to  relieve 
themselves  of  the  problem  by  setting  them  free,  is  to 
be  found  in  Helen  Gardener's  delightful  book,  "An 
Unofficial  Patriot."  By  the  way,  it  contains  the  best 
portrayal  of  Lincoln  in  our  literature. 

Jefferson  did  the  best  he  could,  as  a  practical  man. 
He  was  one  of  the  kindest  masters  that  ever  lived,  too 
lenient  for  the  good  of  his  slaves  —  so  lenient  as  to 
put  and  leave  his  private  business  in  a  deplorable 
condition  —  for,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  his  unwilling 
ness  to  make  his  slaves  do  good  work  accounts  more 
than  any  other  one  thing  for  the  fact  that  his  child 
was  left  without  a  shelter  for  her  head,  and  that  the 
negroes  themselves  finally  had  to  be  sold,  some  of  them 
perhaps  to  bad  masters. 

Jefferson's  ever-initiatory  mind,  when  he  had  what 
he  thought  a  beneficent  public  object  in  view,  is  illus 
trated  in  a  long  letter  to  Jared  Sparks,  dated  February 
4,  1824,  in  which  he  suggests  the  consecration  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  public  lands  to  the  emancipation  and 
deportation  of  the  slaves.  In  after  years,  however, 
after  the  cotton  gin  came  into  general  use,  any  voluntary 
abolition  of  slavery  became  impossible;  that  is  impos- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        79 

sible,  unless  human  nature  itself  could  be  changed  — 
and  this  very  thing  of  changing  human  nature  is  the 
only  thing  impossible  for  the  statesman.  It  must  come 
of  itself,  after  long  reaches  of  time. 

It  is  to  be  said  for  the  slaveholders  of  the  South,  and 
for  the  non-slaveholding  classes  of  the  South,  who  were 
just  as  intense  in  their  devotion  to  the  Southern  cause, 
that,  although  there  was  slavery  among  them,  it  was, 
as  a  system,  the  least  onerous,  the  least  cruel,  and  the 
kindliest  slavery  the  earth  ever  witnessed. 

My  early  boyhood  was  spent  on  a  plantation  of  150 
slaves.  I  was  eleven  years  of  age  when  the  war  closed. 
I  remember  only  three  plantation  punishments:  One  a 
man  whipped  for  stealing,  one  a  woman  whipped  for 
general  and  dangerous  prostitution,  and  the  other  was 
that  of  a  man,  who  was  kept  on  bread  and  water  for 
two  weeks,  because  he  had  in  a  mutual  fray  killed  his 
brother.  The  last  finally  met  with  the  penalty  — 
unprecedented  on  that  place  — which  he  dreaded  most, 
and  tearfully  attempted  to  escape  —  sale. 

I  leave  this  plain  narrative  without  comment.  Nor 
do  I  pretend  that  there  were  no  exceptions  to  the 
almost  universal  kindly  usage  —  almost  patriarchal 
in  its  character  —  on  which  I  have  slightly  raised  the 
curtain.  But,  in  the  Chancel  of  God,  where  all  acts 
and  all  motives  are  known,  the  slaveholders  of  the  South 
will  not  stand  least  prepared  amongst  men  to  receive 
Divine  justice,  or  Divine  mercy.  Much  of  their 
heroism  upon  the  battle-field,  indeed,  grew  out  of  the 
fact  that  they  had  been  held  up  to  the  world's  hatred, 
as  cruel  and  selfish  and  autocratic,  when  they  knew 
that  they  were  none  of  these.  They  were  fighting 


80        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

personal  insult  as  much  as  anything  else.  Certainly  no 
class  enjoying  by  law  special  caste  privilege,  or  any  class 
subjected  by  their  situation  to  such  grave  temptations, 
ever  behaved  so  well. 

The  first  sentence  of  Jefferson's  bill  "Concerning 
Slaves"  —  that  is,  the  bill  abolishing  the  importation 
of  slaves  into  Virginia,  was  in  these  words:  — 

"That  no  persons  shall  henceforth  be  slaves  within  this  Common 
wealth,  except  such  as  were  so  on  the  first  day  of  this  present  session 
of  Assembly,  and  the  descendants  of  the  females  of  them.  Slaves 
which  shall  hereafter  be  brought  into  this  Commonwealth,  and  kept 
therein  one  year,  or  so  long  at  different  times  as  shall  amount  to 
one  year,  shall  be  free." 

If  each  State  had  imitated  this  statute,  slavery  must 
have  died  out  in  the  border  States,  and  the  race  problem, 
even  in  the  cotton  States,  owing  to  the  consequent  com 
parative  paucity  in  numbers  of  Africans,  would  never 
have  been  the  stupendous  thing  it  now  is. 

Professor  Andrew  D.  White,  "  Jefferson  and  Slavery/' 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  of  January,  1862,  says:  — 

"Logic  forced  him  to  pass  from  the  attack  on  aristocracy  to  the 
attack  on  slavery,  just  as  logic  forces  the  Confederate  oligarchs  of 
today  to  pass  from  the  defence  of  slavery  to  the  defence  of  aris 
tocracy." 

Remember,  this  was  written  in  1862,  and  therefore 
considering  the  heated  feelings  of  war  times,  the  son  of 
a  Confederate  soldier  can  forgive  Professor  White  for 
referring  to  his  forefathers  as  " oligarchs";  which  they 
by  no  means  were.  But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the 
defence  of  slavery  did  logically  compel  to  a  certain 
extent  the  defence  of  caste,  for  it  was  itself  a  form  of 


_,-    DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        81 

caste  and   class  privilege.    But   as  Thomas   Carlyle 
said:  "I  thank  God  men  are  not  logical." 

Professor  White  quotes  these  utterances  from  Jeffer 
son,  which  I  shall  re-quote.  Remember,  Jefferson  is 
addressing  his  brother  slaveholders  of  Virginia:  — 

"When  arguing  for  ourselves,  we  lay  it  down  as  fundamental, 
that  laws,  to  be  just,  must  give  reciprocation  of  right  —  that 
without  this,  they  are  mere  arbitrary  rules  of  conduct,  founded  in 
force,  and  not  in  conscience;  and  it  is  a  problem  which  I  give  to  the 
master  to  solve,  whether  the  religious  precepts  against  the  violation 
of  property  were  not  framed  for  him  as  well  as  his  slave  —  and 
whether  the  slave  may  not  as  justifiably  take  a  little  from  one  who 
has  taken  all  from  him  as  a  man  may  slay  one  who  would  slay  him." 

"Can  the  liberties  of  a  nation  be  thought  secure,  when  we 
have  removed  their  only  firm  basis  —  a  conviction  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  that  their  liberties  are  the  gifts  of  God,  that  they  are 
not  to  be  violated  but  with  His  wrath?  .  .  .  The  Almighty  has  no 
attribute,  which  can  take  side  with  us  in  such  a  contest" 

"What  a  stupendous,  what  an  incomprehensible  machine  is 
man  —  who  can  endure  toil,  famine,  stripes,  imprisonment,  and 
death  itself,  in  vindication  of  his  own  liberty,  and,  in  the  next  mo 
ment,  be  deaf  to  all  those  motives  whose  power  supported  him 
through  his  trial,  and  inflict  on  his  fellow  men  a  bondage  one  hour 
of  which  is  fraught  with  more  misery  than  ages  of  that  which  he  rose 
in  rebellion  to  oppose?" 

"The  hour  of  emancipation  is  advancing  in  the  march  of  time. 
It  will  come;  and  whether  brought  on  by  the  generous  energy  of  our 
own  minds  or  by  the  bloody  process  of  St.  Domingo,  ...  is  a  leaf 
of  our  history  not  yet  turned  over." 

If  the  war  had  not  come,  and  the  slaves  been  freed  as  a 
"war  measure,"  and  if  —  there  being  no  power  under 
the  Constitution  for  Congress  to  interfere  with  slavery 

7 


82        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

in  the  States  —  slavery  had  continued  for  another  half 
century  or  so,  the  negro  population  growing  in  com 
parison  with  the  whites,  as  it  did  under  slavery  con 
ditions  —  so  favorable  to  their  birth  rate  and  un 
favorable  to  their  death  rate  —  would  not  the  scenes 
of  San  Domingo  have  been  some  day  necessarily  re- 
enacted  in  the  Southern  cotton  States? 

Jefferson's  enduring  influence  in  every  word  he 
uttered  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  during  the  War 
Between  the  States,  Andrew  D.  White,  in  this  very 
article,  quoted  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
as  a  "war  measure,"  what  Jefferson  said,  when  Corn- 
wallis  had  carried  his  negroes  off  to  die  of  smallpox  and 
then  deserted  them  stricken  and  dying:  "Had  this 
been  to  give  them  their  freedom,  he  would  have  done 
right."  This  is  quoted  against  Jefferson's  own  kith 
and  kin,  against  the  South  that  he  loved  so  dearly, 
against  Virginia  that  he  almost  worshipped.  But  it 
must  be  confessed  that  what  Jefferson  said  was  a  logos, 
just  as  is  the  phrase  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
"All  men  are  created  equal  and  endowed,"  etc.  In  the 
latter  case,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Jefferson  intended  it 
to  be  as  a  leaven,  and  that  he  saw,  long  down  the  aisle 
of  time,  the  day  when  that  leaven  must  work. 

Jefferson's  own  words  in  connection  with  his  desire 
to  procure  the  emancipation  and  deportation  of  slaves, 
better  express  his  view  than  any  explanation  of  them:  — 

"It  is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  progress  of  emancipation 
and  deportation,  peaceably,  and  in  such  slow  degree,  as  that  the 
evil  will  wear  off  insensibly,  and  their  place  be,  pari  passu,  filled  up 
by  free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  left  to  force  itself 
on,  human  nature  must  shudder  at  the  prospect  held  up." 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        83 

Later,  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  "Memoir"  uses  this 
language  in  connection  with  the  same  subject:  - 

"But  it  was  found  that  the  public  mind  would  not  yet  bear  the 
proposition,  nor  will  it  bear  it  even  at  this  day.  Yet  the  day  is 
not  distant  when  it  must  bear  and  adopt  it,  or  worse  will  follow. 
Nothing  is  more  certainly  written  in  the  book  of  fate  than  that  these 
people  are  to  be  free.  Nor  is  it  less  certain  that  the  two  races,  equally 
free,  cannot  live  in  the  same  government.  Nature,  habit,  opinion, 
have  drawn  indelible  lines  of  distinction  between  them." 

If  our  Southern  ancestry  could  have  "borne"  the 
proposition  early  enough,  what  a  deluge  of  blood,  what 
a  wealth  of  women's  tears,  what  devastations  of  the  land, 
and  what  waste  in  treasures  had  been  spared  us!  And 
if  your  Northern  forefathers  had  only  remembered  the 
balance  of  what  Jefferson  wrote  and  knew  so  well,  or 
if  they  could,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  known  it; 
namely,  that  the  two  races  cannot  live  equals  politically 
and  socially,  in  the  same  government,  because  "nature, 
habit  and  opinion  have  drawn  indelible  lines  of  dis 
tinction  between  them,"  how  much  of  the  criminalities, 
follies,  mad  saturnalia  and  corruption  of  reconstruction, 
how  much  of  the  great  "Fool's  Errand,"  as  it  is  so  well 
designated  by  one  who  calls  himself  "one  of  the  fools," 
would  have  been  spared  us  as  a  nation! 

I  know  of  nothing  showing  the  prescient  wisdom  of 
one  man,  more  than  these  few  lines  just  quoted  from 
Mr.  Jefferson  show  his.  In  this,  as  in  many  other 
instances,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  man  had  an 
intuitive,  and  not  merely  a  reasoned,  insight  into  the 
future.  What  would  we  not  have  been  by  now  had  we 
never  been  cursed  with  slavery,  with  the  irrepressible, 
bloody  and  wasteful  conflict  growing  out  of  it,  and  with 


84        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

the  almost  unavoidable  pendente  bello  and  post  bellum 
federal  and  industrial  consolidation,  all  leading  to  the 
casting  off  of  the  ship  for  so  long  a  time  from  the  old 
Jeffersonian  moorings!  It  must  be  confessed  that  the 
running  together  of  partisan  interest  and  of  slave 
interest  made  the  party  which  Jefferson  founded  to 
cease  for  a  time  to  be  Jeffersonian  —  made  it  a  de 
fender  of  aristocracy,  as  well  as  of  slavery  in  the  South. 
It  seems  restored  to  its  old  course  again.  God  grant 
that  the  verisimilitude  prove  a  verity! 

The  plan  of  emancipation  and  deportation,  which 
Jefferson  drew  up  —  intended  to  be  offered  as  an 
amendment  to  the  slave  code  —  as  reported  by  the 
law  revisers,  contemplated  not  only  the  freedom  of  all 
slaves  born  after  a  certain  date,  but  their  apprentice 
ship  to  some  trade,  until  reaching  a  certain  age,  and 
then  their  deportation  to  some  territory  to  be  bought 
for  them,  and  an  advancement  of  tools  of  husbandry 
and  of  provisions  sufficient  for  them  to  support  them 
selves,  until  a  crop  had  been  made  on  land  given  them. 

Lincoln,  like  Jefferson,  recognized  inherent  differ 
ences  between  the  two  races,  and  regarded  the  blacks 
as  essentially  inferior.  In  other  words,  neither  was 
ever  free  of  that  which  most  people  call  "race  preju 
dice,"  but  which  I  think  ought  to  be  called  "race 
knowledge." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  Jefferson  resigned 
from  the  Continental  Congress  to  go  to  Virginia  in 
order  to  make  sure  of  democratic  reforms,  one  reason 
he  gave  for  undertaking  it  at  that  time  was  this:  "The 
shackles  which  shall  not  be  knocked  off  at  the  con 
clusion  of  this  war  will  remain  on  us  long,  will  be  made 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        85 

heavier  and  heavier,  till  our  rights  shall  revive  or  expire 
in  a  convulsion."  Thus  early  he  foresaw  the  great 
American  Counter  Revolution. 

He  was  so  convinced  that  this  great  work  of  "  adapt 
ing  the  laws  to  republican  institutions, "  was  needful,  if 
the  fruit  of  our  war  for  independence  was  to  be  any 
thing  more  than  a  mere  change  of  buntings,  that  the 
trappings  of  office  on  the  one  side  could  not  tempt,  nor 
the  hatred  of  the  beneficiaries  of  special  privilege,  on  the 
other  hand,  deter  him. 

Speaking  of  the  purpose  of  his  revision  work,  he  says 
in  his  " Memoir":  — 

"I  considered  four  of  these  bills  passed  or  reported,  as  forming  a 
system  by  which  every  fibre  would  be  eradicated  of  ancient  or  future 
aristocracy,  and  a  foundation  laid  for  a  government  truly  republican. 
(1)  The  repeal  of  the  laws  of  entail  would  prevent  the  accumulation 
and  perpetuation  of  wealth  in  select  families,  and  preserve  the  soil 
of  the  country  from  being  daily  more  and  more  absorbed  in  mort 
main.  (2)  The  abolition  of  primogeniture,  and  the  equal  partition 
of  inheritances,  removed  the  feudal  and  unnatural  distinctions 
which  made  one  member  of  every  family  rich  and  all  the  rest  poor. 
(3)  The  restoration  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  relieved  the  people 
from  taxation  for  the  support  of  a  religion  not  theirs;  for  the  estab 
lishment  was  truly  the  religion  of  the  rich,  the  dissenting  sects  being 
entirely  composed  of  the  less  wealthy  people;  and  (4)  These,  by 
the  bill  for  general  education,  would  be  qualified  to  understand 
their  rights,  to  maintain  them,  and  to  exercise  with  intelligence 
their  parts  in  self-government.  And  all  this  would  be  effected 
without  the  violation  of  a  single  natural  right  of  any  one  individual 
citizen.'1 

The  last  sentence  is  especially  characteristic  of  the 
"Conservative  Reformer."  A  reformer,  yes,  that  is  the 
substantive  —  the  main  thing  —  but  conservative  in 
method  —  almost  noiseless  in  approach.  Later  Jeffer- 


86        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

son  had  reason  to  believe  that  reformation  would  have 
to  go  yet  deeper  at  some  future  time  in  order  to  prevent 
that  undue  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  people  —  so  destructive  of  the  spirit  of  free  insti 
tutions  —  and  in  one  of  his  letters  —  I  do  not  recall  to 
whom  —  he  said  that  when  that  day  should  come,  the 
abolition  of  primogeniture  and  entail  would  have  to  be 
followed  by  "a  limitation  of  the  statutory  privilege" 
of  bequest,  devise  and  inheritance,  as  to  the  amounts 
which  could  be  left  by  any  one  person,  to  any  one  per 
son,  or  purpose.  He  was  prescient  and  far-seeing  in 
this,  too,  and  to  it  we  must  come.  It  will  also  be  only 
the  limitation  of  "a  statutory  privilege, "  not  "the 
violation  of  a  single  natural  right"  of  a  single  citizen. 

Jefferson  well  says,  that  it  is  intolerable  that  the 
skeleton  fingers  of  the  dead  shall  forever  reach  from 
their  graves  to  control  the  destinies  of  the  living  to  their 
detriment.  And  yet  further,  in  a  letter  he  wrote  from 
France,  being,  as  he  designated  it,  a  "train  of  reflec 
tions"  on  "the  unequal  division  of  property,"  caused 
by  finding  people  "without  land  to  work  or  work  to 
do"  in  a  part  of  France,  where  "enormous  holdings," 
in  the  hands  of  great  lords,  "some  of  them"  waited  on 
by  "200  domestics,"  were  "devoted  to  game"  —  thus 
placing  the  proprietors  there  above  the  necessity  or 
incentive  of  improving,  or  even  of  cultivating  the  land 
—  he  says  —  after  recognizing  that  equal  division  is 
impracticable  and  undesirable:  "but  legislators  cannot 
invent  too  many  devices  for  subdividing  property,  only 
taking  care  to  let  those  subdivisions  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  natural  affections  of  the  human  mind."  Then 
he  recommends  as  a  first  step  for  France  what  she  sub- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS       87 

sequently  adopted,  and  what  he  had  already  partially 
accomplished  in  Virginia:  Descent  to  all  the  children  — 
if  none,  to  all  the  brothers  and  sisters  —  or  in  default 
of  those  to  "other  relatives  in  an  equal  degree."  " An 
other  means  of  a  fairer  distribution,"  he  suggests,  "is 
to  exempt  all  real  property  below  a  certain  value  from 
taxation  and  graduate  the  tax  on  the  rest  in  proportion 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  holding  in  geometrical  pro 
gression."  He  adds:  "The  earth  is  given  as  common 
stock  for  man  to  live  and  labor  on.  It  is  too  soon  yet 
in  our  country  to  say  that  every  man,  who  cannot  find 
employment,  but  who  can  find  uncultivated  land,  shall 
be  at  liberty  to  cultivate  it,  paying  a  moderate  rent," 
but  "not  too  soon"  to  make  it  a  point,  that  "as  few 
families  as  possible  shall  be  without  a  little  portion  of 
land"  —  "Small  landholders  are  the  most  precious 
part  of  the  State." 

Leicester  Ford  finds  in  all  this  a  demonstration  of 
"French  influence,"  and,  I  presume,  much  "horrid 
radicalism" !  I  confess  I  see  nothing  French  in  it, 
except  a  protest  against  French  conditions  and  the 
fact  that  it  happened  to  be  written  in  France,  after  a 
Laurence-Sterne-sort  of  a  meeting  with  a  poor  old 
French  woman.  I  confess,  too,  that,  if  the  recom 
mendations  reached  at  the  end  of  this  "train  of  reflec 
tions"  be  radical,  they  seem  to  me  none  the  less  wise. 

But  to  return  to  our  sheep:  He  took  his  seat  in  the 
Virginia  House  of  Delegates  on  October  7th.  Five 
days  after  that,  in  such  a  hurry  was  he  to  strike  while 
the  iron  was  hot,  he  took  his  first  steps  towards  effecting 
the  gigantic  reforms  to  which  I  have  referred.  To 
use  his  own  language,  he  thought  it  well,  first  to  try 


88        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"the  strength  of  the  general  pulse  of  reformation,"  by 
attacking  the  salient  "  vicious  points,"  "  prominent  in 
character  and  principle." 

On  October  12th,  he  moved  and  received  leave  to 
bring  in  a  bill  entitled,  a  bill  "To  enable  tenants  in 
taille  to  convey  their  lands  in  fee  simple,"  and  on  the 
same  day  received  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  "For  a 
revision  of  the  laws."  He  was  doing  his  work  quickly, 
because  on  the  14th  he  reported  back  the  first  bill. 
The  enormity  of  this  revolution  and  its  influence  upon 
the  economic  condition  and  the  social  life  of  Virginia, 
can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.  All  over  the  State,  but 
preeminently  on  "The  Eastern  Shore"  and  in  the  lower 
counties,  the  land  had  been  gathered  into  great  estates, 
held  by  the  law  of  entail  from  generation  to  generation 
in  the  same  family.  Moreover,  by  the  law  of  primo 
geniture,  they  descended  to  the  oldest  son  of  the 
family.  These  two  laws  together  had  produced  the 
same  result,  which  may  be  now  viewed  in  Great 
Britain,  only  the  result  rn  Virginia  was  still  more  pro 
nounced,  if  anything,  because  the  law  of  entail  there 
carried  slaves  as  well  as  land.  As  a  consequence,  the 
social  structure  was  essentially  aristocratic,  producing, 
on  the  one  hand,  a  class  of  great  landlords,  living  in 
luxury,  sometimes  in  idleness,  though,  be  it  said  to 
their  credit,  for  the  most  part,  usefully,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  noblesse  oblige.  But  The  Few  controlled  in 
politics,  in  society,  and  in  every  other  way.  No 
worthier  aristocracy,  upon  the  whole,  than  that  of 
Colonial  Virginia,  ever  existed,  none  ever  devoted 
itself  more  unselfishly  to  the  public  service,  none  ever 
cared  less  about  pelf;  but  it  was  none  the  less  an  aris- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        89 

tocracy,  and,  as  such,  was  antagonistic  to  every  political 
theory  of  young  Jefferson,  middle-aged  Jefferson,  and 
old  Jefferson.  A  class  like  this  must,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  exercise  more  influence  than  any  equal  number 
of  equally  able  men  not  possessing  their  artificial 
advantages  —  of  station,  education,  social  life,  wealth; 
and  must  in  the  nature  of  things  exercise  it  as  a  class. 
The  governmental  structure  necessarily  rests  upon  the 
social  and  family  structure. 

The  Lees,  the  Randolphs,  the  Pendletons,  the  Nel 
sons,  the  Pages,  the  Carters,  the  Careys;  a  hundred 
names  will  suggest  themselves  at  once,  illustrating  the 
justice  of  any  possible  tribute  to  the  old  Virginia 
aristocracy,  but  the  contemplation  of  them  and  their 
services  is  the  bright  side  of  the  shield. 

Jefferson's  doctrines,  as  Randall  says,  were  "hard 
and  unpalatable"  to  many  of  this  class,  whom  Jeffer 
son,  in  a  pet,  once  called  "the  nurselings  of  luxury/' 
and  some  of  whom  he  designated  as  being  "mono 
maniacs  on  the  subject  of  family  importance."  For 
years  afterwards  it  was  fashionable  to  dwell  senti 
mentally  upon  "the  decadence  of  Virginia,"  and  to 
attribute  this  to  "the  decadence  of  the  great  families," 
and  this,  in  turn,  to  Thomas  Jefferson's  "leveling 
principles."  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  after  he  became 
sour,  indulged  in  much  of  this  sort  of  drivelling. 

It  was  not  the  abolition  of  special  privileges,  which 
held  Virginia  back;  it  was  the  failure  to  go  far  enough 
with  the  good  work  and  abolish  slavery  and  deport  the 
slaves,  just  as  it  is  the  presence  of  an  alien,  unassimilable 
and  improvident  race,  constituting  industrially  an 
inefficient  labor,  and  socially  a  constant  irritant,  which 
is  today  the  South's  sole  drawback. 


90        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

We  can  all  now  realize  what  an  effect  the  equality 
of  inheritance  has  upon  the  framework  of  society;  how 
it  tears  down  an  artificial  and  superficial,  though  fair- 
appearing  structure,  and  substitutes  for  it  another  more 
enduring,  and  in  every  way  better  adapted  to  secure 
the  liberty  and  happiness  and  independence  of  man. 

In  his  own  State,  and  in  the  South  generally,  the 
abolition  of  primogeniture  and  entail  has  thus  far 
secured  a  fair  distribution  of  wealth,  but  a  worse  thing 
than  primogeniture  is  taking  its  place  in  some  of  the 
Northern  States  —  especially  in  New  York  —  where 
it  has  become  a  fad  with  some  of  the  rich  families  to 
leave  by  will  nearly  all  of  their  stupendous  estates,  not 
to  the  oldest  son,  who  might  possibly  feel  that  he  had 
enough  money  and  "go  in  for"  something  else,  but  to 
that  one  of  the  sons,  who  comes  nearest  resembling 
the  founder  of  the  family  fortune  in  his  greed  for 
money,  and  in  his  capacity  for  making  it  —  in  short, 
to  the  best  " money-grubber"  in  the  stock. 

The  peculiar  thing  is  that  Jefferson  procured  the 
passage  of  these  "laws  striking  at  the  ascendency  and 
domination  of  great,  respectable  and  respected  classes" 
by  an  appeal  to  the  reason  of  a  body  in  which  those 
classes  themselves  were  numerously  represented,  and  of 
which  classes  Jefferson  himself  was  a  member,  for  he 
was  a  holder  of  extensive  lands  and  an  owner  of  very 
many  slaves,  and  in  his  own  family  an  eldest  son.  But 
he  did  not  secure  their  passage  without  a  fight  —  a  fight 
not  as  acrimonious  as  it  would  have  been,  if  anybody 
but  Jefferson  had  been  the  advocate  of  the  reforms, 
nor  if  the  struggle  had  taken  place  elsewhere  than  in 
Virginia,  where  it  was  a  tradition  that  political  oppo- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        91 

nents,  however  divergent  their  views,  must  in  public 
be  personally  courteous  to  one  another.  Men  of  more 
than  respectable  talents,  however  —  among  them  the 
Pendletons  and  Nicholases  —  met  him  in  the  breach. 
When  frontal  attack  failed,  they  resorted  to  attacks  on 
the  flank.  For  example,  when  the  law  to  abolish  entails 
was  proposed,  Mr.  Pendleton,  desiring  to  emasculate 
it,  moved  an  amendment  that  the  holders  of  such 
property  might  convey  it  in  fee  simple,  "if  they  chose 
to  do  so,"  and  came  within  a  few  votes  of  securing  the 
passage  of  the  amendment! 

Proceeding  with  his  work  of  reformation,  on  October 
14th,  he  procured  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  natural 
ization  of  foreigners,  and  reported  the  bill  upon  this 
subject  on  the  same  day.  This  bill  is  remarkable,  not 
only  because  it  outlines  an  American  policy  towards 
those  seeking  our  shores,  which  became  afterwards 
permanent,  except  for  a  short  interruption  by  the 
Federalists  during  alien  and  sedition  law  times  and  a 
brief  menace  during  Know-Nothing  days,  but  it  is 
remarkable  as  being  the  first  public  legislative  denial 
of  the  doctrine  of  indefeasible  allegiance.  To  this  I 
have  referred.  Both  these,  it  may  be  safely  asserted, 
have  become  for  us  permanent  and  irrevocable  national 
policies. 

Among  other  then  notable  and  far-reaching  things, 
he  subjected  land,  just  like  other  property,  to  the  pay 
ment  of  debts.  He  made  it  a  fluid  asset.  This  was 
very  important  in  connection  with  the  work  of  demo 
cratizing.  You  cannot  completely  free  the  man,  unless 
you  free  the  land.  Man  —  the  worker,  land  —  the 
fulcrum  —  these  two,  in  ultimate  analysis,  are  all. 


92        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Against  the  proposed  abolition  of  primogeniture, 
Pendleton  made  a  strong  stand  in  committee  in  behalf 
of  his  class,  and  when  he  found  a  majority  against 
him,  resorted  to  a  ruse,  by  proposing  to  adopt  "the 
Hebrew  principle,"  that  is,  to  give  the  oldest  son  a 
double  portion.  Jefferson,  quaintly,  but  decisively, 
answered,  that  "if  the  eldest  son  could  eat  twice  as 
much,  or  do  double  work,  it  might  be  a  natural  evi 
dence  of  his  right  to  inherit  a  double  portion;  but  being 
on  a  par  in  his  powers  and  wants,  with  his  brothers  and 
sisters,  he  should  be  on  a  par  also  in  the  partition  of 
the  patrimony."  The  committee  agreed  with  him. 

These  laws  exerted  for  all  time  their  democratizing 
influence  over  the  people  of  Virginia,  and,  by  their 
example  which  was  imitated  elsewhere,  a  beneficent 
influence  over  all  America,  but  especially  in  the  new 
States  created  out  of  the  old  Territory  of  Virginia, 
where  he  and  his  ideas  were  all  his  life  intensely  popular. 

John  Esten  Cooke,  in  his  "History  of  Virginia," 
says:  — 

"After  1800,  Virginia  gradually  assumed  a  new  physiognomy. 
Dress  and  manners  underwent  a  change.  The  aristocratic  planter, 
with  his  powder  and  silk  stockings,  gave  place  to  the  democratic 
citizen,  with  his  plain  clothes  and  plain  manners.  The  theories  of 
Jefferson  were  adopted  as  the  rule  of  society.  .  .  .  Class  distinctions 
were  ignored  as  a  remnant  of  social  superstition." 

On  the  13th  of  August,  1777,  Jefferson  wrote  to 
Franklin  as  follows:  — 

"With  respect  to  the  State  of  Virginia,  .  .  .  the  people  seem 
to  have  laid  aside  the  monarchical  and  taken  up  the  republican 
government,  with  as  much  ease  as  would  have  attended  their 
throwing  off  an  old  and  putting  on  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  Not  a 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        93 

single  throe  has  attended  this  important  transformation.  A 
half-dozen  aristocratical  gentlemen,  agonizing  under  the  loss  of 
preeminence,  have  sometimes  ventured  their  sarcasms  on  our 
political  metamorphosis." 

In  one  graphic  sentence,  Thomas  E.  Watson,  in  his 
"Life  and  Times  of  Jefferson,"  gives  the  effect  of  Jeffer 
son's  work  in  democratizing  Virginia  institutions:  "He 
unfettered  the  land,  changed  the  tenure  from  fee  tail 
to  fee  simple,  made  the  soil  democratic ,  and  made 
the  law  to  correspond.  .  .  .  Mind  and  tongue  were 
unfettered.  Religious  liberty  came  to  all."  Truly 
"a  State  made  over,"  and  virtually  by  one  man,  whom 
shallow-pates  have  called  a  "doctrinaire!"  That  old 
quotation  comes  to  my  mind:  "They  said  he  was  a 
dreamer,  but  his  dreams  came  true." 

What  is  a  doctrinaire? 

Burke,  the  prince  of  rhetoricians,  says  of  Chatham, 
the  elder  Pitt:  "For  a  wise  man  he  seemed  to  me  at 
that  time  to  be  too  much  governed  by  general  maxims." 
But  history  records  practically  nothing  left  by  Burke  to 
mark  his  impress  on  institutions  and  history,  while  she 
records  Chatham  as  an  empire  builder. 

Yet,  let  us  not  give  Jefferson  all  the  credit.  Old 
Virginia  had  the  heart  and  head  to  follow  him  in  every 
respect,  except  concerning  slavery;  to  embrace  a  democ 
racy  of  equal  rights,  equal  opportunities  without  legal 
or  artificial  privileges,  and  thus  democratic  has  she 
remained  —  "so  shedding  light"  that  all  good  States 
may  imitate  her  example. 

Jefferson  always  contended  that  despite  its  admirable 
town-government  system,  the  governing  spirit  of 
Federalist  New  England  was  not  genuinely  democratic. 


94        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

This  has  "  amused "  some  of  the  late  writers,  who 
assume  to  wear  the  old  Federalist  mantle,  under  the 
impression  that  it  sets  them  aside  as  something  "su 
perior!" 

Mr.  C.  Edward  Merriam,  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  has  written  a  very  interesting  book  entitled, 
" American  Political  Theories,"  published  by  the 
Macmillan  Company  in  1903,  the  perusal  of  which, 
under  this  head,  I  recommend  to  the  reader.  Among 
other  things  which  he  makes  perfectly  plain  is  the  fact 
that  the  system  of  government  advocated  by  the  early 
Puritans  was  based  upon  neither  equality  nor  democ 
racy;  it  was  a  theocratic  government,  with  pretty 
nearly  all  the  power  directedly  or  indirectly  wielded 
by  the  clergy  —  so  much  so  that  only  church  members 
could  become  " freemen;"  that  is,  a  part  of  the  govern 
ing  community.  This  was  the  case  by  law  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  Haven,  and  by  actual  practice  in 
Plymouth  and  Connecticut.  As  he  says,  it  was  Roger 
Williams,  not  the  Puritans,  who  stood  for  democracy, 
in  New  England.  He  taught  limiting  the  activity  of 
the  state  to  what  were  called  "  breaches  of  the  second 
table,"  a  new  phrase  to  me,  when  I  struck  it.  The  first 
four  commandments  were  called  the  first  table,  because 
they  related  to  the  duty  of  man  to  God,  and  the  last 
six  were  called  the  second  table,  because  they  related 
to  the  duties  of  man  to  man.  In  essential  basic 
character,  Roger  Williams'  view  of  the  limits  of  the 
state  in  the  affairs  of  men  is  not  unlike  that  of  Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Merriam  cites  that  John  Cotton  in  1644  denounced 
democracy  as  "the  meanest  and  worst  of  all  forms  of 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        95 

government,"  and  that  as  late  as  1764  in  Massa 
chusetts  Bay  the  proposition  to  establish  aristocracy, 
as  a  form  of  government,  was  rejected,  only  because  it 
involved  "the  abandonment  of  the  requirement  of  church 
membership  for  the  exercise  of  suffrage!"  (Italics 
always  mine.) 

Merriam  adds  that  the  "Puritans  did  not  preach  or 
practice  religious  toleration,  nor  did  they  become 
enthusiastic  about  the  inherent  rights  of  man."  The 
equality  which  they  believed  in  was  spiritual  equality; 
that  is,  equality  among  the  saints  —  the  elect.  Of 
course,  in  this  connection,  the  distinction  between  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  and  the  Puritans  must  be  kept  in 
mind;  they  are  generally  confused.  The  practice  and 
theory  of  the  former  were  perfectly  democratic  and 
much  more  conducive  to  equality  of  citizens  in  the 
state.  The  political  ideas  of  the  Quakers  were  much 
more  nearly  those  which  were  finally  stamped  as  Ameri 
can  and  national  by  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  much  more  nearly  like  those  which 
were  advocated  by  Roger  Williams  and  Jefferson,  than 
were  those  of  the  early  settlers  in  New  England. 
William  Penn's  definition  of  free  government  is  not  a 
bad  one.  It  is  this:  "Any  government  is  free  to  the 
people  under  it  ...  where  the  laws  rule  and  the  people 
are  a  party  to  those  laws."  Compare  this  with  Jeffer 
son's  definition  of  a  "Pure  Republic,"  which  see  later. 
The  two  constitute  not  a  bad  definition  of  the  theory  of 
the  true,  not  the  play-acting,  "progressives"  of  today. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  when  he  left  Congress  and  went  home 
to  be  elected  to  the  House  of  Burgesses,  had  said,  that 
he  did  it  because  the  "laboring  oar  was  really  at  home." 


96        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

It  was  eminently  in  keeping  with  all  of  his  opinions  and 
all  of  his  future  life,  that  he  should  have  begun  the 
work  of  democratizing  American  institutions,  edu 
cationally  and  socially  and  industrially,  in  the  State  — 
raising  a  standard  for  the  other  States  —  because  the 
State  was,  as  he  later  expressed  it,  the  "  surest  safe 
guard  of  republican  institutions." 

2.      AN  APOSTLE   OF  LOCAL  SELF-GOVEENMENT 

Jefferson  has  long  been  regarded  as  the  apostle  of 
local  self-government.  In  his  first  inaugural  address, 
in  all  his  state  papers,  and  in  all  of  his  letters,  where 
there  was  any  relevancy  to  the  question,  and  in  the 
Kentucky  Resolutions,  his  apostleship  is  displayed; 
but  for  the  most  part,  people  have  only  the  idea  of 
States'  Rights  in  their  minds  in  connection  with  his 
position.  Jefferson  went  further  than  that.  Notwith 
standing  the  Kentucky  Resolutions,  which  were  in 
content  mainly,  and  in  intent  altogether,  a  State 
protest  only,  two  men  were  never  in  all  history  really 
further  apart  than  he  and  John  C.  Calhoun.  He  was 
very  much  enamoured  with  the  old  Saxon  Communal 
Government,  and  he  became  early  in  life,  and  continued 
to  his  death,  enamoured  with  the  New  England  Town 
ship  System,  a  system  which  brings  the  direct  govern 
ment  of  the  people,  upon  a  small  scale,  into  more 
perfect  operation  than  any  other  institution  in  America. 

On  May  26,  1810,  after  he  had  retired  from  the 
Presidency,  he  said  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Tyler:  — 

"I  have  indeed  two  great  measures  at  heart,  without  which  no 
republic  can  maintain  itself  in  strength.  1.  That  of  general  educa 
tion,  to  enable  every  man  to  judge  for  himself  what  will  secure  or 
endanger  his  freedom.  2.  To  divide  every  county  into  hundreds, 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        97 

of  such  size  that  all  the  children  of  each  will  be  within  a  central 
school  in  it.  ...  These  little  republics  would  be  the  main  strength 
of  the  great  one.  We  owe  to  them  the  vigor  given  to  our  revolu 
tion  in  its  commencement  in  the  Eastern  States." 

To  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  on  January  31, 1814,  he  writes: — 

"There  are  two  subjects,  indeed,  which  I  claim  a  right  to  further 
as  long  as  I  breathe  —  the  public  education  and  the  subdivision 
of  counties  into  wards.  /  consider  the  continuance  of  republican 
government,  as  absolutely  hanging  on  these  two  hooks" 

In  another  letter  he  says,  to  the  same  correspondent: 
11  My  friend,  the  way  to  have  good  and  safe  govern 
ment  is  not  to  trust  it  all  to  one,  but  to  divide  it  among 
the  many,  distributing  to  every  one  exactly  the  func 
tions  he  is  competent  to."  Then  follows  his  sub 
division,  beginning  with  the  national  government  and 
its  proper  functions,  continuing  through  the  state 
governments  and  a  general  description  of  what  should 
concern  them,  to  the  counties,  and  then  the  "wards," 
as  he  called  them,  or  "townships,"  as  they  were  called 
in  New  England.  Of  them  he  says :  — 

"The  elementary  republics  of  these  wards,  the  county  republics, 
the  State  republics,  and  the  republic  of  the  Union,  would  form  a 
gradation  of  authorities,  standing  each  on  the  basis  of  law,  holding 
every  one  its  delegated  share  of  powers,  and  constituting  truly  a 
system  of  fundamental  balances  and  checks.  .  .  .  Where  every  man 
is  a  sharer  in  the  direction  of  his  ward  republic,  or  of  some  of  the 
higher  ones,  and  feels  that  he  is  a  participator  in  the  government  of 
affairs,  not  merely  at  an  election  one  day  in  the  year,  but  every  day; 
...  he  will  let  the  heart  be  torn  out  of  his  body  sooner  than  his 
power  be  wrested  from  him  by  a  Caesar  or  a  Bonaparte." 

Then  he  exclaims:  — 

"How  powerfully  did  we  feel  the  energy  of  this  organization  in 
the  case  of  the  Embargo?    I  felt  the  foundations  of  the  government 
8 


98        PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

shaken  under  my  feet  by  the  New  England  township  .  .  .  and, 
although  the  whole  of  the  other  States  were  known  to  be  in  favor 
of  the  measure,  yet,  the  organization  of  this  little  selfish  minority 
enabled  it  to  override  the  Union.  ...  As  Cato  once  concluded 
every  speech  with  the  words,  '  Carthago  delenda  est,'  so  do  I  every 
opinion  with  the  injunction,  'divide  the  counties  into  wards.' 
Begin  them  only  for  a  single  purpose,  they  will  soon  show  for  what 
others  they  are  the  best  instruments." 

Again,  to  Samuel  Kercheval,  on  July  12,  1816:  — 

"These  wards,  called  townships  in  New  England,  are  the  vital 
principle  of  their  government,  and  have  proved  themselves  the 
wisest  invention  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  men,  for  the  perfect  exercise 
of  self-government,  and  for  its  preservation." 

Jefferson's  definition  of  "a  pure  republic"  is  this:  "  A 
government  by  the  citizens  in  mass,  acting  directly  and 
personally,  according  to  the  rules  established  by  the 
majority."  (See  Penn's  definition  on  a  previous  page.) 
He  acknowledges  that  these  "pure  republics"  can 
exist  only  on  areas  so  small  that  all  citizens  may 
readily  meet  together. 

With  regard  to  local  self-government,  in  another 
place,  he  says:  — 

"Our  country  is  too  large  to  have  all  its  affairs  directed  by  a 
single  government.  Public  servants  at  such  a  distance,  and  from 
under  the  eye  of  their  constituents,  must,  from  the  circumstance  of 
distance,  be  unable  to  administer  and  overlook  all  the  details  neces 
sary  for  the  good  government  of  the  citizens,  and  the  same  circum 
stance,  by  rendering  detection  impossible  to  their  constituents,  will 
invite  the  public  servants  to  corruption,  plunder  and  waste.  .  .  . 
You  have  seen  the  practices  by  which  the  public  servants  have  been 
able  to  cover  their  conduct,  or,  where  that  could  not  be  done,  the  de 
lusions  by  which  they  have  varnished  it  for  the  eye  of  their  constit 
uents.  What  an  augmentation  of  the  field  for  jobbing,  speculating, 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS        99 

plundering,  office  building  and  office  hunting  would  be  produced  by 
an  assumption  of  all  the  state  powers  into  the  hands  of  the  general 
government." 

Whether  the  States  are  to  remain  indestructible  and 
whether  the  precious  blessing  of  local  self-government 
upon  smaller  areas  is  to  be  perpetuated,  depends  upon 
the  degree  of  concentration  of  governmental  power  at 
Washington.  If  it  is  carried  too  far,  of  course,  the 
cords  some  day  must  snap,  and  if  they  do,  one  of  "the 
two  hooks"  upon  which  our  destinies  hang  will  have 
disappeared,  "the  balance"  will  be  lost,  and  no  man  is 
wise  enough  to  foresee  the  ultimate  result.  The  real 
balance  in  this  Government  is  that  between  the  States 
and  the  counties  and  the  townships,  on  one  side,  and 
the  Federal  Government,  on  the  other.  These  "lesser 
republics"  have  jurisdiction  over  nine-tenths  of  the 
questions  which  concern  the  individual  in  his  daily  life. 
It  is  even  of  more  importance  that  the  government  of 
them  should  be  wise  and  pure  and  free  and  enlightened, 
than  it  is  that  the  National  Government  should  be  so. 
It  is  their  not  being  so,  which  gives  pretext  for  Federal 
usurpation.  The  ship  has  thus  far  weathered  the  gale, 
though  with  some  broken  spars  and  shredded  sails. 

Montesquieu  had  written  —  and  Montesquieu  was  a 
name  held  in  high  reverence  in  that  day  by  all  except 
Thomas  Jefferson  —  that  a  republic  was  adapted  only 
for  a  small  territory,  but  Jefferson's  conviction  was 
precisely  the  contrary,  if  only  it  were  a  Federal  Republic 
of  limited,  delegated  powers.  "A  Republic  of  Repub 
lics!"  That  is  the  name  which  Sage,  of  New  Orleans, 
in  a  book  by  that  title  gave  to  our  dual  government. 


100     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

If  it  had  gone  further  and  read,  "  A  Republic  of  Repub 
lics  and  of  Lesser  Republics"  —  carrying  the  mind 
down  to  the  county  and  township  republics,  with  their 
direct  participation  by  all  the  people  in  democratic 
assemblies  —  it  would  have  been  thoroughly  descrip 
tive  of  Jefferson's  ideal. 

Virginia  had  adopted  a  written  constitution  in  1776. 
It  was  adopted  at  a  tune  when  patriots  were  trying  to 
get  together,  and  when  the  main  object  in  view  was  to 
put  some  sort  of  State  government  upon  a  legal  footing, 
to  take  the  place  of  the  patriotic  but  irresponsible 
revolutionary  committees.  There  were  some  un 
democratic  features  in  it  needing  revision.  Long 
afterwards,  Samuel  Kercheval  wrote  some  letters  on 
the  subject  and  enclosed  them  to  Jefferson,  asking  his 
advice.  There  is  much  of  Jeffersonianism  in  Jefferson's 
reply,  and  of  the  sort  which  has  exerted  a  permanent 
influence  on  our  State  institutions.  In  many  respects, 
it  is  worthy  to  stand  side  by  side  with  "The  Summary 
View/'  the  great  "Declaration  of  Independence,"  the 
platform  letter  to  Elbridge  Gerry  in  1800,  and  the 
"First  Inaugural,"  as  an  exponent  of  Americanism. 

This  letter  appears  in  full  as  Appendix  29  to  be  found 
in  the  third  volume  of  Randall's  "Life  of  Jefferson," 
page  647.  It  was  dated  July  12,  1816.  Excerpts  from 
which  are  as  follows:  — 

"In  truth,  the  abuses  of  monarchy  had  so  much  filled  all  the 
space  of  our  political  contemplation,  that  we  imagined  everything 
republican,  which  was  not  monarchy.  We  had  not  yet  penetrated 
to  the  mother  principle  that  'governments  are  republican  only  in 
proportion  as  they  embody  the  will  of  their  people,  and  execute  it.9 
Hence,  our  first  constitutions  had  really  no  leading  principle  in 
them.  But  experience  and  reflection  have  but  more  and  more 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INBTmjTiONS     HOI 

confirmed  me  in  the  particular  importance  of  the  equal  representa 
tion  then  proposed. 

"In  the  Legislature"  (of  Virginia)  "the  House  of  Representatives 
is  chosen  by  less  than  half  the  people,  and  not  at  all  in  proportion 
to  those  who  do  choose.  The  Senators  are  still  more  dispropor 
tionate,  and  for  long  terms  of  irresponsibility.  In  the  Executive, 
the  Governor  is  entirely  independent  of  the  choice  of  the  people,  and 
of  their  control;  his  council  equally  so,  and  at  best  but  a  fifth  wheel 
to  a  wagon.  In  the  Judiciary  the  judges  of  the  highest  courts  are 
dependent  on  none  but  themselves.  In  England,  where  judges  were 
named  and  removable  at  the  will  of  an  hereditary  executive,  from 
which  branch  most  misrule  was  feared  and  has  flowed,  it  was  a 
great  point  gained,  by  fixing  them  for  life,  to  make  them  inde 
pendent  of  the  executive.  But  in  a  government  founded  on  the 
public  will,  this  principle  operates  in  an  opposite  direction,  and 
against  that  will.  There,  too,  they  were  still  removable  on  a 
concurrence  of  the  executive  and  legislative  branches.  But  we 
have  made  them  independent  of  the  nation  itself." 

This  utterance,  and  what  follows  about  judges,  with 
its  cool,  limpid  reasoning,  was  and  is  of  far-reaching 
influence. 

In  Jefferson's  day  all  State  judges,  as  far  as  I  have 
learned,  except  in  Connecticut,  were  appointed.  In 
the  twenties  he  urged  their  election  for  fixed  terms  in 
Virginia,  and  cited  the  success  of  the  experiment  in 
Connecticut.  By  the  time  the  Democracy  had  de 
veloped  itself  further  under  Jackson,  they  were  nearly 
everywhere  elected,  and  life  tenure  was  abolished 
everywhere,  except  with  the  Federal  Judiciary.  Thus 
all  three  branches  of  the  government  became  democ 
ratized. 

Of  the  Revolutionary  constitutions,  very  few,  if  any, 
were  submitted  to  the  people,  they  being  adopted  by 
conventions  alone. 


RERM4>IENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Beginning  with  "the  word"  —  under  Jefferson,  and 
culminating  with  the  deed  under  Jackson,  constitutions 
began  everywhere  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  for  their 
ratification;  that  is,  nearly  everywhere.  Some  few 
very  conservative  States  never  did  submit  them.  No 
constitution  of  Mississippi,  for  example,  except  one, 
was  ever  submitted  to  the  people,  the  people  seeming 
to  think  that  they  can  get  a  wiser,  better  fundamental 
law,  if  they  elect  the  very  best  men  to  constitute  a 
constitutional  convention,  and  leave  them  with  plenary 
power.  This  was  all  a  growth  out  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
doctrine  that  he  wanted  "frequent  recurrence  to 
fundamental  principles." 

Recurring  in  this  letter  to  his  favorite  scheme  for 
the  complete  democratization  of  Virginia  --  dividing 
the  counties  into  wards  and  giving  them  direct  self- 
government  to  a  certain  extent  similar  to  the  New 
England  township  system  —  he  says :  — 

"The  organization  of  our  county  administrations  may  be 
thought  more  difficult.  But  follow  principle,  and  the  knot  unties 
itself.  Divide  the  counties  into  wards  of  such  size  as  that  every 
citizen  can  attend  when  called  on,  and  act  in  person.  Ascribe 
to  them  the  government  of  their  wards  in  all  things  relating  to 
themselves  exclusively.  A  justice,  chosen  by  themselves,  in  each; 
a  constable,  a  military  company,  a  patrol,  a  school;  the  care  of  their 
own  poor,  their  own  portion  of  the  public  roads,  etc.  .  .  .  These 
wards,  called  townships  in  New  England,  are  the  vital  principles 
of  their  governments,  and  have  proved  themselves  the  wisest  invention 
ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man  for  the  perfect  exercise  of  self-government, 
and  for  its  preservation.  We  should  thus  marshal  out  government 
into,  1.  The  general  federal  republic,  for  all  concerns  foreign  and 
federal;  2.  That  of  the  state,  for  what  relates  to  our  own  citizens  ex 
clusively;  3.  The  count y  republics,  for  the  duties  and  concerns  of  the 
county;  and,  4.  The  ward  republics,  for  the  small,  and  yet  numerous 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS      103 

and  interesting  concerns  of  the  neighborhood;  and  in  government, 
as  well  as  in  every  other  business  of  life,  it  is  by  division  and  sub 
division  of  duties  alone,  that  all  matters,  great  and  small,  can  be 
managed  to  perfection.  And  the  whole  is  cemented  by  giving  to 
every  citizen,  personally,  a  part  in  the  administration  of  the  public 
affairs." 

After  this,  he  sums  up  the  whole  situation  and 
expresses  the  philosophy  underlying  it :  - 

"The  sum  of  these  amendments  is:  1.  General  suffrage;  2.  Equal 
representation  in  the  Legislature;  3.  Judges  elected  or  amovable; 

5.  Justices,  jurors"  (evidently  grand  jurors)  "and  sheriffs  elective; 

6.  Ward  divisions;  and,  7.  Periodical  amendments  of  the  Consti 
tution. 

"  I  have  thrown  out  those,  as  loose  heads  of  amendment  for  con 
sideration  and  correction;  and  their  object  is  to  secure  self-govern 
ment  by  the  republicanism  of  our  constitution,  as  well  as  by  the 
spirit  of  the  people;  and  to  nourish  and  perpetuate  that  spirit.  I 
am  not  among  those  who  fear  the  people.  They,  and  not  the  rich, 
are  our  dependence  for  continued  freedom.  And  to  preserve  their 
independence,  we  must  not  let  our  rulers  load  us  with  perpetual 
debt.  We  must  make  our  election  between  economy  and  liberty, 
or  profusion  and  servitude." 

In  this  last  sentence  is  the  doctrine  of  "Jeffersonian 
simplicity." 

Note  the  summing  up  and  remember  how  —  gradu 
ally  beginning  the  work  then  and  substantially  com 
pleting  it  under  Andrew  Jackson  —  his  political  dis 
ciples  pursued  his  instructions  in  nearly  all  the  States, 
and  in  every  case  (except  the  election  of  grand  jurors 
and  (7),  the  last),  to  a  successful  consummation.  He 
came  afterwards,  as  I  shall  show  later  in  my  lecture  on 
Educational  Influence,  to  modify  his  views  on  the 
suffrage,  to  the  extent,  of  desiring  an  educational,  or 
reading  and  writing,  qualification.  This  is  being 
gradually  adopted,  and  will  be  universally. 


104      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Dr.  Grigsby  says  in  his  discourses  on  the  Virginia 
Convention  of  1776:  — 

"The  first  Constitution  of  Virginia  withstood,  for  nearly  forty 
years,  his  (Jefferson's)  attacks  in  the  Notes;  but  when  he  threw  his 
thoughts  into  the  shape  of  a  letter  to  Kercheval,  the  fate  of  that 
instrument  was  sealed.  The  phrases  of  that  letter  were  at  once 
stereotyped  in  the  public  voice;  and  it  was  amusing  to  observe  on 
the  court  green,  and  in  debate,  how  these  phrases  passed  current 
with  men,  who  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  the  letter,  and  who 
believed  that  they  were  clothing  their  own  thoughts  in  their  own 
words." 

And  this  summary,  too,  by  Watson  is  well  worth 
reading  and  well  worth  remembering:  — 

"The  ink  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  hardly  dry 
when  this  same  'timid'  Jefferson  hurried  to  Virginia,  challenged  the 
proud,  strong  aristocracy  of  the  Old  Dominion  to  the  field,  and 
unhorsed  it  in  fair  fight.  Then  he  accomplished  what  French 
Revolutionists  found  it  hard  to  do,  and  what  Mr.  Gladstone  found 
it  so  hard  to  do  in  Ireland,  and  what  no  man  has  been  able  to  do 
in  England  to  this  day  —  he  disestablished  the  State  church. 

' '  Not  only  that !  He  told  the  whites  they  ought  to  free  the  blacks ; 
and  told  the  rich  they  ought  to  tax  themselves  to  educate  the 
poor."  .  .  . 

"Yet  so  scholarly  a  writer  as  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  makes 
'timidity'  a  salient  feature  of  Jefferson's  character;  and  Mr.  Roose 
velt  continually  repeats  that  he  was  'weak  and  vacillating.'" 

What  I  am  now  about?  to  quote  from  Jefferson,  I  select 
to  repeat  and  emphasize  that  it  was  not  alone  the  state 
governments,  but  the  county  and  town  governments, 
within  their  several  spheres,  for  the  full  vigor  of  which 
he  always  contended:  — 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  STATE  INSTITUTIONS      105 

"But  the  true  barriers  of  liberty  in  this  country  are  our  state 
governments;  and  the  wisest  conservative  power  ever  contrived 
by  man  is  that  of  which  our  revolution  and  present  government 
found  us  possessed.  Seventeen  distinct  states,  amalgamated  into 
one,  as  to  their  foreign  concerns,  but  single  and  independent  as  to 
their  internal  administration,  regularly  organized  with  a  legislature 
and  governor  resting  on  the  choice  of  the  people,  and  enlightened 
by  a  free  press,  can  never  be  so  fascinated  by  the  arts  of  one  man, 
as  to  submit  voluntarily  to  his  usurpation.  Nor  can  they  be  con 
strained  to  it  by  any  force  he  can  possess.  While  they  may  paralyze 
the  single  state  in  which  it  happens  to  be  encamped,  sixteen  others, 
spread  over  a  country  of  two  thousand  miles  diameter,  rise  up  on 
every  side,  ready  organized  for  deliberation  by  a  constitutional 
legislature,  and  for  action  by  their  governor,  constitutionally  the 
commander  of  the  militia  of  the  state  —  that  is  to  say,  of  every 
man  in  it  able  to  bear  arms  —  and  that  militia,  too,  regularly  formed 
into  regiments  and  battalions,  into  infantry,  cavalry  and  artillery, 
trained  under  officers,  general  and  subordinate,  legally  appointed, 
always  in  readiness,  and  to  whom  they  are  already  in  habits  of 
obedience.  The  republican  government  of  France  was  lost  without 
a  struggle,  because  the  party  of  lun  et  indivisible'  had  prevailed, 
no  provincial  organizations  existed  to  which  the  people  might  rally, 
under  authority  of  the  laws,  the  seats  of  the  directory  were  virtually 
vacant,  and  a  small  force  was  sufficient  to  turn  the  legislature  out 
of  their  chamber,  and  to  salute  its  leader  chief  of  the  nation." 

In  "  Jefferson  and  His  Political  Philosophy,"  by  Mary 
Plate  Parmelee,  she  says  of  Jefferson's  great  and  rest 
less  mind,  that  "it  was  a  laboratory  and  not  a  store 
house,"  and  that,  "He  believed  that  the  ideal  govern 
ment  should  be  framed  not  so  much  to  restrain  the 
popular  will  as  to  express  it;  not  to  obstruct,  but  to 
execute  it." 

We  can  only  wonder  that  the  hatred  of  Jefferson  was 
not  greater.  He  offended  in  turn  each  entrenched 
class.  Take  that  one  expression  of  his:  "I  tremble  for 


106      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

my  country  when  I  think  of  the  negro  and  know  that 
God  is  just."  These  are  words  uttered  by  Thomas 
Jefferson  in  Virginia  —  by  a  slaveholder  in  the  midst  of 
slaveholders  —  and  not  by  Lincoln  in  Illinois,  nor  by 
Garrison  or  Sumner  in  Massachusetts,  where  they 
would  have  been  popular! 


CHAPTER  IV 

JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT 

THERE  is  no  use  for  my  purpose  in  detailing  dates  and 
circumstances  of  Jefferson's  being  sent  to  France. 
He  is  there  first  with  two  colleagues,  John  Adams  and 
Benjamin  Franklin,  as  Envoys  Extraordinary,  and 
subsequently  alone  as  Minister  to  France.  He  was 
not  only  lucky  in  having  succeeded  Mr.  Franklin  as 
Minister,  but  he  was  lucky  in  this:  that  America  was 
then  itself,  as  Franklin  was,  a  sort  of  fad  in  Paris  with 
litterateurs,  and  even  with  courtiers. 

There  was  not  much  for  Jefferson  to  do  in  France  of 
weighty  concern  to  our  prosperity.  He  did  obtain  the 
admission  of  our  products  on  favorable  terms,  as  com 
pared  with  those  of  other  nations,  and  a  mitigation  of 
the  Government  tobacco  monopoly.  In  fact,  con 
sidering  how  the  ghost  of  the  mercantile  theory  still 
had  its  fingers  around  the  throats  of  all  the  ruling 
spirits  in  nearly  every  nation,  he  did  a  good  deal.  He 
gave  a  sensible  stimulus  to  our  policy  of  Reciprocity. 
In  his  diplomatic  correspondence  he  shows  himself 
fully  in  possession  of  those  economical  principles  the 
soundness  of  which  Adam  Smith  was  demonstrating. 

He  writes  to  the  French  Premier  that  France  "  could 
not  expect  America  to  come  to  her  to  purchase,  when 
she  did  not  take  American  commodities  in  return/7 
thus  impressing  the  great  economical  truth,  that,  after 

107 


108      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

all,  commodities  are  somehow,  somewhere,  paid  for 
with  other  commodities. 

Finally,  before  he  left  he  had  a  battle  royal  with  the 
protective  system,  which  was  shutting  the  ports  of 
France  against  food  when  Frenchmen  were  dying  for 
the  lack  of  it;  "and  spent  his  last  days,  even  his  last 
hours,  in  Paris,  in  trying  to  persuade  the  Ministry  to 
permit  the  importation  of  salted  provisions  from  the 
United  States,"  and  failed!  Parton  epitomizes  the 
interview  delightfully.  "  Salt  beef/'  objected  the  Count 
de  Montmorin,  "will  give  the  people  scurvy."  "No," 
replied  Jefferson,  "we  eat  it  in  America  and  we  don't 
have  the  scurvy."  "The  salt  tax  will  fall  off,"  said  the 
Minister.  Jefferson  could  not  deny  that  it  might  a 
little;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  "it  would  relieve  the 
Government  from  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  price  of 
bread  below  its  value."  "But,"  resumed  the  Count, 
"the  people  of  France  will  not  buy  salt  meat." 
"Then,"  replied  Jefferson,  "the  merchants  won't 
import  it,  and  no  harm  will  be  done."  "And  you 
cannot  make  a  good  soup  out  of  it,"  urged  the  Count. 
"True,"  said  Jefferson,  "but  it  gives  a  delightful  flavor 
to  vegetables.  Besides  it  will  cost  only  half  the  price 
of  fresh  meat." 

Ridiculous,  isn't  it?  But  this  last  year  our  people 
were  paying  three  prices  for  Irish  potatoes,  and  yet 
Congress  could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  suspend  the 
import  duty! 

Nothing,  however,  done  by  Jefferson  in  France  as 
Envoy  or  as  Minister  can  be  said  to  have  permanently 
affected  our  International  Relations  unless  it  be  the 
so-called  Model  Treaty,  which  Franklin,  Adams  and 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  109 

he  put  in  shape  to  be  proffered  by  us  to  all  nations. 
James  Parton  says  of  this  celebrated  "  model  draft  of 
a  treaty ":  "What  an  amiable,  harmless,  useless  docu 
ment  it  seems!  But  it  was  the  first  serious  attempt 
ever  made  to  conduct  the  intercourse  of  nations  on 
Christian  principles;  and  it  was  made  by  three  men  to 
whom  ignorance  has  sometimes  denied  the  name  of 
Christians."  This  is  a  partial  error.  The  instructions 
to  our  Ministers  abroad,  drawn  by  Jefferson,  when  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  was  the 
" first  attempt"  of  this  sort,  and  "the  model  treaty" 
and  it  are  so  much  alike  that  plainly  the  latter  is  based 
on  the  former.  I  expect,  if  I  live  to  the  Scriptural 
limit  of  age,  to  see  the  main  provisions  of  that  treaty 
adopted  by  the  civilized  nations  of  the  earth  in  their 
intercourse  with  one  another,  thereby  confining  the 
evils  of  war  —  always  unnecessary  and  barbarous  — 
within  as  narrow  limits  as  possible.  Already  priva 
teering  has  been  abolished,  which  was  one  of  the  things 
the  authors  of  "the  model  treaty"  sought.  The  whole 
world  admits,  that  there  ought  to  be  no  confiscation  of 
neutral  property  —  another  thing  they  sought.  I  hope 
the  day  is  not  far  distant,  when  war  will  bring  "no 
molestation  to  fishermen,  farmers,"  and  other  non- 
combatants,  and  "no  useless  ravaging  of  the  enemy 's 
coast  at  a  point  where  the  enemy  has  no  ships  or 
arms,"  which  constituted  another  of  their  amis. 

Another  of  their  objects  was  that  there  should  be,  "no 
crowding  of  prisoners  of  war  into  unwholesome  places." 
Already  this  example  had  been  set  by  Jefferson's  advice 
and  active  aid  among  "the  sweet  hills  of  Albemarle," 
where  nearly  a  whole  county  and  the  open  air  had 


110      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

constituted  the  only  prison  of  our  British  and  Hessian 
captives.  Some  day  a  nation  will  not  call  itself  respect 
able  which  does  not  obey  the  precept  of  the  Model 
Treaty  on  this  head.  And  why  should  we  not  hope  to 
see  the  day  when  Article  XVII  shall  be  in  effect?  That 
Article  read:  — 

"If  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  either  party,  in  danger  from 
tempests,  pirates,  or  other  accidents,  shall  take  refuge  with  their 
vessels  within  the  harbors  or  jurisdiction  of  the  other,  they  shall 
be  received,  protected,  and  treated  with  humanity  and  kindness, 
and  shall  be  permitted  to  furnish  themselves  at  reasonable  prices, 
with  all  the  refreshments,  provisions,  and  other  things  necessary 
for  their  subsistence,  health,  and  accommodation,  and  for  the  repairs 
of  their  vessels." 

Are  not  people  anyhow  somewhat  too  prone  to  call 
humanly  attainable  things  " visionary"?  Was  not  old 
George  Washington  practical?  He  said  of  that  draft 
of  a  treaty  that  it  "  marks  a  new  era  in  negotiation/' 
and  "old  Frederick  of  Prussia,"  as  Jefferson  calls  him, 
was  a  right  hard-headed  old  fellow,  and  he  entered  into 
a  treaty  with  us  containing  substantially  these  things. 
Let  us  not  take  for  granted  that  people,  who  want  to 
improve  the  world  and  make  nations  treat  one  another 
just  as  civilized  gentlemen  treat  one  another,  are 
necessarily  vision-seeers.  May  be,  it  might  be  wiser  to 
drop  one  e}  and  call  them  seers  instead? 

Parton  says,  and  I  cannot  make  up  my  mind  whether 
he  says  it  in  derision  or  in  earnest:  — 

"In  short,  the  commission  to  negotiate  commercial  treaties 
had  but  one  important  result,  namely,  the  composition  of  the  draft 
of  the  treaty  and  its  preservation  in  the  Diplomatic  Correspondence 
of  the  United  States  against  the  time  when  nations  shall  want  it." 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  111 

May  God  speed  the  coming  of  the  time,  and  may 
God  equally  speed  the  cessation  of  talk  about  such  a 
time  as  " impracticable"  and  "visionary!"  If,  as  he 
says,  the  treaty  "remains  only  as  an  admonition  and  a 
prophecy,"  it  is  at  least  an  admonition  Godward, 
because  Peaceward;  and  a  prophecy  which  will  be  ful 
filled,  if  the  world  grows  from  mere  civilization  to  that 
enlightenment,  where  "the  common  sense  of  most" 
can  "hold  a  fretful  realm  in  awe." 

Jefferson  had  made  an  excellent  foreign  minister. 
In  the  transaction  of  his  official  duties  and  of  those 
extra  official  duties,  which  consume  so  much  of  a 
foreign  minister's  time,  he  had  been  patient,  tactful, 
courteous  and  wise.  His  dispatches  home  are  among 
the  greatest  state  papers  which  we  have.  He  had 
shown  himself  in  France,  as  earlier  in  Virginia  and  later 
at  Philadelphia  and  Washington,  an  excellent  judge  of 
men.  Even  Judge  Marshall,  who  hated  him,  says: 
"and  in  that  situation"  (that  is,  as  Minister  to  France) 
"he  acquitted  himself  much  to  the  public  satisfac 
tion." 

Later  Webster,  who  had  no  great  use  for  Jefferson, 
speaking  of  his  services  abroad,  says:  "No  court  in 
Europe  had  at  that  time  in  Paris  a  representative 
commanding  or  enjoying  higher  regard,  for  political 
knowledge,  or  for  general  attainments,  than  the 
minister  of  this  then  infant  republic." 

The  contemporaneous  Edinburgh  Review  referred  to 
his  "watchfulness  on  every  subject,"  his  perseverance, 
his  skill  and  knowledge,  as  not  suffering  in  comparison 
even  with  Franklin's  diplomatic  talents,  and  to  his 
public  letters  as  "excelling  in  excellence  an  equal 


112      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

twelve  month's  letters  from  any  British  Ambassa 
dor." 

But  it  was  as  Secretary  of  State  and  President  that 
Jefferson  left  a  lasting  impress  on  this  Government's 
International  Relations. 

On  his  way  from  Norfolk  to  Monticello  after  he  had 
landed  in  America,  he  received  the  letter  from  General 
Washington  offering  him  the  place  of  Secretary  of 
State,  really  then,  as  now,  the  Cabinet  Premiership. 
Jefferson  reluctantly  forewent  his  desire  to  remain  in 
the  diplomatic  service  and  accepted.  He  arrived  in 
New  York,  after  a  visit  on  the  way  to  his  old  friend 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  immediately  took  up  the  three 
months  arrears  of  work  in  the  Department  of  State. 

As  almost  the  first  thing,  the  reader  may  compare, 
certainly  with  credit  to  Jefferson,  not  only  in  point  of 
patriotism,  but  in  point  of  prescience,  his  words,  as 
Secretary  of  State,  asserting  the  right  of  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi  River  —  with  its  subsequent  tame 
surrender  for  twenty-five  years  by  Jay,  as  Foreign 
Minister,  and  by  Washington,  as  President,  in  the 
memorable  Jay  Treaty. 

Jefferson's  letters  of  instruction  to  Carmichael  and 
Short  on  this  subject  are  instructive  and  interesting, 
especially  in  this:  that  he  based  our  claim  not  only  on 
the  Treaty  of  Paris  of  '63  and  the  Treaty  of  1782-83, 
but  characteristically  upon  the  announcement  of  an 
" abstract  proposition,"  to  wit:  that  "the  right  to  a 
thing  gives  a  right  to  the  means  without  which  the  thing 
can  not  be  used."  He  calls  this  a  "still  broader  and 
more  unquestionable  ground,"  than  the  treaty  grounds, 
and  adds  that,  "if  the  right  of  the  upper  inhabitants  to 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  113 

descend  a  stream  is  in  any  case  obstructed,  it  is  but  an 
act  of  force  by  a  stronger  society  against  a  weaker,  and 
is  condemned  by  the  judgment  of  mankind." 

Anticipating  that  Spain  might  make  the  argument, 
that,  if  she  granted  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
to  the  United  States,  she  must  likewise,  under  the 
"most  favored  nation "  clause  of  her  treaties,  grant  it 
to  others,  he  denies  that  the  most  favored  nation  clause 
could  be  invoked,  because  "  Spain  does  not  grant  us  the 
navigation  of  the  river;  we  have  an  inherent  right  to  it" 

On  the  24th  of  April  the  first  Federal  precedent  of 
our  position  to  be  taken  in  matters  of  extradition  was 
settled,  and  our  time-honored  policy  with  regard  to 
political  offenses  was  initiated.  An  extract  from 
Jefferson's  instructions  will  explain  itself.  The  reader 
will  see  from  reading  it  that  this,  too,  was  the  beginning 
of  a  permanent  policy  on  the  part  of  our  Government :  — 

"Treason.  This,  when  real,  merits  the  highest  punishment. 
But  most  codes  extend  their  definitions  of  treason  to  acts  not 
really  against  one's  country.  They  do  not  distinguish  between 
acts  against  the  government  and  acts  against  the  oppressions  of 
the  government;  the  latter  are  virtues;  yet  they  have  furnished  more 
victims  to  the  executioner  than  the  former;  because  real  treasons 
are  rare;  oppressions  frequent.  The  unsuccessful  strugglers  against 
tyranny,  have  been  the  chief  martyrs  of  treason  laws  of  all  countries. 

"Reformation  of  government  with  our  neighbors,  being  as  much 
wanted  now  as  reformation  of  religion  is,  or  ever  was  anywhere, 
we  should  not  wish,  then,  to  give  up  to  the  executioner,  the  patriot 
who  fails,  and  flees  to  us.  Treasons,  then  —  taking  the  simulated 
with  the  real  —  are  sufficiently  punished  by  exile." 

Soon  after,  Jefferson  had  to  meet,  for  the  first  time  in 
our  history,  another  troublesome  question:  the  question 
of  how  far  the  dual  character  of  our  republic  must  be 
9 


114      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

considered  by  foreign  nations  in  the  interpretation  of 
treaties  with  the  United  States.  The  United  States 
had  undertaken  to  secure  that  there  should  be  no  legal 
obstructions  to  the  collections  of  debts  due  to  British 
subjects.  The  British  had  cause  to  complain,  because 
there  were  obstructions  in  the  State  Statutes,  and  they 
were  holding  our  frontier  forts  until  we  had  complied 
with  the  treaty,  in  the  way  that  they  construed  it. 

Upon  this  question  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  came  into 
clash.  Jefferson  was  requested  to  put  his  views  in 
writing  and  hand  them  to  the  President,  which  was 
done.  In  this  paper  he  took  the  position  that  the 
British  Government  must  have  understood  beforehand 
the  dual  nature  of  our  institutions;  what  would  be  the 
force  and  extent  of  a  Federal  power;  and  that  any  inter 
ference  with  the  States  by  the  United  States,  as  a 
Government,  must  be,  to  use  his  own  language,  "not  a 
matter  of  obligation,  or  coercion,  but  of  persuasion  and 
influence  merely,"  as  the  United  States  Government 
under  our  system  had  not  power  to  control  State  Legis 
latures  or  State  Courts,  and  could  not  be  taken  to  have 
stipulated  in  the  treaty  to  do  what  it  could  not  do;  that 
the  Government  had  observed  the  treaty  to  the 
extent  of  its  power  by  making  recommendations  and 
by  using  all  its  influence.  This  precedent,  too,  all 
intelligent  Presidents  and  Secretaries  of  State  have 
since  followed. 

Jefferson,  being  our  first  Secretary  of  State,  his  acts 
and  utterances,  have  had  a  more  permanent  effect  upon 
our  history  with  regard  to  international  affairs  than 
those  of  any  other  man.  In  many  matters  he  was 
overridden  by  the  Cabinet,  but  not  with  regard  to 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  115 

foreign  affairs.  In  fact,  in  some  instances,  the  Presi 
dent  supported  him  against  all  the  balance  of  the 
Cabinet  —  a  very,  very  rare  thing  for  Washington  to 
do  —  so  rare  that  I  have  no  knowledge  of  his  having 
done  it  with  regard  to  any  of  his  other  Secretaries. 

Early  in  November,  America  heard  with  astonish 
ment  of  the  dethronement  and  imprisonment  of  the 
King  of  France,  and  a  Cabinet  consultation  was  held 
upon  the  subject  —  whether  we  should  suspend  our 
payment  of  the  French  debt.  Jefferson  thus  sums  up 
what  occurred:  — 

"I  admitted  that  the  late  Constitution  was  dissolved  by  the 
dethronement  of  the  King;  and  the  management  of  affairs  surviving 
to  the  National  Assembly  only,  that  this  was  not  an  integral  legis 
lature,  and  therefore  not  competent  to  give  a  legitimate  discharge 
for  our  payment;  that  I  thought  consequently  that  none  should  be 
made  until  some  legitimate  body  came  into  place;  that  I  should 
consider  the  National  Convention  called,  but  not  yet  met,  to  be  a 
legitimate  body.  Hamilton  doubted  whether  it  would  be  a  legiti 
mate  body,  and  whether,  if  the  King  should  be  re-established,  he 
might  not  disallow  such  payments,  on  good  grounds." 

The  Cabinet  meeting  ended  by  an  agreement  that 
Jefferson  was  to  write  to  Gouverneur  Morris  to  suspend 
payment  "till  further  orders."  These  further  orders 
were  sent,  when  the  National  Convention  "  came  into 
place,"  to  the  effect  that  we  acknowledge  the  obligation 
of  the  debt  and  were  ready  to  pay  what  was  due. 
The  policy  here  outlined,  as  Jefferson's  opinion,  became 
a  permanent  policy  in  our  Government.  Foreign  debts 
ever  since  have  been  regarded  by  us  as  International, 
not  Inter-dynastic. 

On  September  19th,  in  a  letter  to  our  Minister  in 
England,  Jefferson  outlined  what  he  called  the  "Cath- 


116      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

olic  Principle  of  Republicanism,"  as  regards  recogni 
tion  of  governments.    It  is  this:  — 

"We  certainly  cannot  deny  to  other  nations  that  principle, 
whereon  our  own  government  is  founded;  that  every  nation  has  a 
right  to  govern  itself  internally,  under  what  form  it  pleases,  and  to 
change  these  forms,  at  its  own  will;  and,  externally,  to  transact 
business  with  other  nations  through  whatever  organ  it  chooses, 
whether  that  be  a  King,  Convention,  Assembly,  Committee,  Presi 
dent,  or  whatever  it  be.  The  only  thing  essential  is,  the  will  of  the 
nation.  Taking  this  as  your  polar  star,  you  can  hardly  err." 

He  had  already  said:  " Principles  being  understood 
their  application  will  be  less  embarrassing." 

This  " Catholic  Principle  of  Republicanism"  was  not 
only  a  " polar  star"  to  guide  our  then  Minister  to  St. 
James,  but  all  American  Ministers  everywhere  ever 
since,  and  all  Secretaries  of  State.  We  have  never 
arrogated  to  ourselves  the  right,  which  the  coalition  of 
Kings  then,  and  the  Holy  Alliance  later,  arrogated  to 
themselves,  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  form  of  govern 
ment  and  the  administration  of  domestic  affairs  in  any 
country  on  the  ground  that  its  "  principles  are  danger 
ous."  The  only  question  with  us  is  the  truly  republican 
and  democratic  one:  Is  the  actual  government  that 
which  the  people  of  the  country  in  question  have 
drawn  over  themselves? 

I  think  it  is  well  enough  here,  in  view  of  coming 
events,  then  already  casting  their  shadows  before 
them,  to  treat  the  question  of  our  treaties  with  France. 
France  had  given  us  money;  lent  us  money;  furnished 
fleets  and  armies,  to  gain  our  independence,  and  all 
the  compensation  she  ever  demanded  was  the  fulfill 
ment,  not  of  all,  but  of  some,  of  the  promises  contained 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  117 

in  these  treaties,  which,  in  many  material  aspects, 
became  later  broken  promises.  I  am  not  saying  that 
some  of  the  promises  ought  not  to  have  been  broken. 
Without  deciding  the  question,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
take  the  stand  that  a  nation  must  abide  indissolubly 
by  the  written  language  of  treaties,  even  to  its  own 
probable  destruction,  or  very  great  hurt.  Certainly, 
the  first  duty  of  a  nation,  as  well  as  its  most  natural 
desire,  is  self-preservation.  At  any  rate  Washington, 
a  very  just  man,  thought  so.  And  Jefferson,  as  his 
Secretary  of  State,  in  spite  of  his  love  for  the  French 
people,  and  of  republican  institutions,  went  with  him, 
in  the  course  of  a  strict  neutrality,  which  necessarily 
violated  some  of  the  provisions  of  the  French  Treaty. 

We  ought  to  have  paid  the  French  debt,  because  we 
owed  the  money,  and  we  owed  much  more  than  the 
accounts  showed;  but  we  could  afford  to  do  what 
Jefferson  recommended  with  regard  to  the  guarantee  — 
hold  it  in  abeyance  until  expressly  called  upon  to  make  it 
good. 

Thomas  E.  Watson  says  that  this  neutral  position 
"kept  us  from  deriving  any  benefits  from  the  victories 
of  Napoleon."  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
victories  of  Napoleon  could  have  done  us  no  good.  His 
victories  were  on  land,  and  the  victories  to  save  us, 
must  have  been  on  sea,  where  Napoleon  could  no  more 
have  helped  us,  than  he  proved  able  to  help  Denmark, 
or  Holland,  or  Spain. 

On  this  point  read  Jefferson's  letter  to  President 
Washington,  giving  his  opinion  concerning  the  French 
treaties,  and  concerning  how  the  French  Minister 
should  be  received.  It  is  perhaps  the  ablest  of  his 


118      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

papers  treating  international  affairs.  It  is  dated  April 
28th,  1793.  It  is  one  of  the  most  forceful  and  lucid 
statements  of  the  principle,  which  binds  nations  to 
their  plighted  word,  that  has  ever  been  penned,  and 
Washington  yielded  to  the  reasoning,  notwithstanding 
the  special  and  specious  pleading  contained  in  Hamil 
ton's  letter  supporting  the  contrary  view.  He  decided 
that  the  treaties  with  France  remained  in  full  force, 
and  that  the  Minister  from  the  French  Republic 
should  be  received  in  the  usual  way  and  without  the 
qualifications  which  Hamilton  suggested.  Ever  since 
it  has  been  our  policy  to  treat  Ministers  also  as  National 
and  not  as  Dynastic  agents. 

The  Federalists  immediately  began  to  oppose  our 
observing  the  French  treaties  upon  two  grounds.  The 
first  ground,  or  pretext,  was  puerile  in  its  character,  to 
wit,  that  the  treaty  was  "not  made  with  France,  but 
with  Louis  XVI,"  or  "Louis  Capet,"  as  they  called 
him  in  their  arguments,  who,  being  dethroned,  left  us, 
as  they  contended,  under  no  international  obligations 
to  France,  "except  those  which  flowed  from  the  general 
principles  of  international  law."  The  excuses  which 
Aesop's  wolf  gave  for  eating  up  Aesop's  lamb  are  the 
only  precedents  which  I  know,  which  could  justify  this 
bare-faced  pretext  to  breach  a  solemn  covenant.  The 
second  reason  was  that  our  guarantee  came  into  force 
only  in  case  of  "a  defensive  war."  The  reply  to  that 
is  that  the  language  of  the  treaty  of  alliance,  in  Articles 
XI  and  XII,  does  not  bear  it  out,  but  expressly  declares 
the  opposite. 

Clearly,  if  language  be  given  to  express,  and  not  to 
conceal  ideas,  Article  XVII  of  the  Treaty  of  Amity 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  119 

and  Commerce  gave  to  French  ships  of  war  and  pri 
vateers  the  right  to  enter  and  harbor  themselves  in 
any  of  our  ports,  carrying  with  them  their  prizes.  We 
surrendered  even  the  right  of  making  examination,  as 
to  the  lawfulness  of  the  prize.  That  is  not  all;  there 
was  a  clear  and  distinct  promise,  on  our  part,  that  we 
would  not  give  shelter,  or  refuge,  to  the  ships  of  war 
and  privateers  of  a  nation  at  war  with  France,  and  that 
even  if  stress  of  weather  forced  them  to  take  temporary 
refuge  with  us,  they  must  go  out,  as  soon  as  possible. 
On  this  head  two  things  were  afterward  contended: 
first,  that  France  had  no  right  to  bring  prizes  within 
our  ports,  and  secondly,  that  permitting  her,  out  of 
our  grace,  to  exercise  such  a  privilege,  we  not  only  had 
the  right,  but  it  was  our  duty  as  a  neutral  nation,  to 
extend  the  same  privileges  to  England.  Both  of  these 
contentions  were  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  express  pro 
visions  of  Article  XXII  of  the  Treaty  of  Amity  and 
Commerce. 

Whatever  reasoning,  good  or  specious,  may  be  used 
to  justify  or  excuse  our  Government  for  the  violation 
of  these  special  provisions  of  the  two  treaties,  it  is 
well,  in  the  interest  of  candor  and  truth,  that  every 
body  should  cease  to  deny  that  they  were  violated. 
The  fact  ought  to  be  admitted  simply  because  it  is  a 
fact,  and  not  be  glossed  over.  The  material  results  of 
the  violation  were  happy  for  us,  and,  it  may  be,  for  the 
entire  world;  happy  for  us,  because  our  States  were 
perhaps  then  too  loosely  united  to  have  withstood  the 
convulsions  of  a  foreign  war,  which  would  have  been 
accompanied  undoubtedly  by  internal  dissensions. 
New  England  would  have  taken,  had  we  stood  by  our 


120      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

alliance  with  France,  against  Great  Britain,  under 
Washington's  administration,  the  same  position  which 
she  afterwards  took  under  Madison's,  and  publicly 
advertised,  while  resisting  the  embargo,  that  she  would 
take  under  Jefferson's,  if  he  dared  to  go  to  war  with 
England.  Her  position  became  less  dangerous  to  the 
Union  just  in  proportion  as  meeting  it  was  postponed, 
while  the  West  grew.  There  was  no  man  then,  who 
entertained  a  doubt  of  the  right  of  a  State  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union.  At  any  rate,  Washington  would  have 
felt,  as  Jefferson  afterwards  confessed  that  he  felt, 
"the  foundations  of  the  government  shaken  under 
his  feet  by  the  action  of  the  New  England  Townships." 
Moreover,  even  if  we  had  gone  through  the  war  suc 
cessfully  and  unitedly,  we  were  then  so  hampered  in 
our  finances,  that  we  would  have  emerged  temporarily 
bankrupt,  or  if  not  that,  at  least  after  the  issue  and 
depreciation  of  another  immense  mass  of  paper  money. 
The  results  were  happy  for  the  civilized  world,  too, 
because,  if,  at  that  early  date,  before  England  — 
always,  like  ourselves,  "an  unready  nation"  —  had 
organized  her  fighting  strength,  we  had  kept  a  part  of 
her  navy  busy  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  it  is  possible, 
though  not  certain,  that  the  great  Napoleon  might  have 
realized  his  dream  of  world-empire.  Notwithstanding 
all  this,  however,  it  will  be  seen  that  those,  who  denied 
the  right  of  the  Executive  to  issue  a  declaration  of 
neutrality,  forestalling  the  action  of  Congress  and 
violating  the  written  provisions  of  the  French  treaties, 
were  not  nearly  so  clearly  wrong,  as  the  respect  and 
the  reverence  of  the  American  people  for  the  character 
and  memory  of  George  Washington  have  led  them  easily 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  121 

to  believe.  The  argument  that  France  had  done  all  she 
did  for  us,  not  really  out  of  love  for  us,  but  out  of 
hatred  of  Great  Britain,  although  an  argument  founded 
on  fact,  is  not  a  valid  one.  We  accepted  her  assist 
ance  —  knowing  her  motive  —  accepted  her  guarantees 
in  the  treaty,  as  the  reciprocals  of  ours  and  as  safe 
guards  of  our  national  existence  and  independence,  when 
we  were  in  our  very  infancy,  and  thought  that  we  needed 
safeguards,  whether  we  did  or  not.  However,  we  were 
relieved  from  the  awkwardness  of  our  situation  very 
much  by  the  fact  that  Genet,  who  succeeded  Ternant, 
when  officially  presented,  said  to  Jefferson,  Secretary 
of  State:  "we  know,  that,  under  present  circum 
stances,  we  have  a  right  to  call  upon  you  for  the 
guarantee  of  our  islands.  But  we  do  not  desire  it. 
We  will  wish  you  to  do  nothing  but  what  is  for  your  own 
good,  and  we  will  do  all  in  our  power  to  promote  it. 
Cherish  your  own  peace  and  prosperity." 

It  was  at  this  time,  and  not  later  —  when  Genet  had 
turned  fool  —  that  Jefferson  expressed  to  Madison  his 
oft-quoted  appreciation  in  these  words:  "It  is  impossible 
for  anything  to  be  more  affectionate,  more  mag 
nanimous,  than  the  purport  of  his  [Genet's]  mission," 
and  added  in  another  part  of  the  letter:  "In  short  he 
offers  everything  and  asks  nothing." 

Jefferson  was  all  the  more  gratified  at  Genet's  high- 
flown,  though  short-lived,  magnanimity,  because  he 
had  evidently  expected  him  to  call  upon  us  to  comply 
at  once  with  our  treaty  obligations.  This  is  my 
inference,  but  I  hazard  it,  because  at  the  very  begin 
ning  of  Genet's  queer  doings  in  America,  while  he  was 
being  welcomed  in  Philadelphia  with  enthusiasm,  after 


122      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

his  equally  enthusiastic  welcome  at  Charleston,  Jeffer 
son  wrote  to  Monroe:  "I  wish  that  we  may  be  able  to 
repress  the  people  within  the  limits  of  a  fair  neutrality." 
This  shows  that  he  was  that  early  determined  on 
neutrality,  and  afraid  that  the  hand  of  the  administra 
tion  might  be  forced  by  the  popular  enthusiasm  for 
France,  with  which  he  then  sympathized. 

Mr.  Foster,  in  his  "Century  of  American  Diplo 
macy,"  writes  with  a  distinct  Federalistic  and  anti- 
Jeff  ersonian  bias  —  " leads  up"  —  as  Mark  Twain  said 
he  did  to  one  of  his  poetical  quotations  —  to  injurious 
things  he  wants  to  say  about  Jefferson.  Many  of 
them  are  purely  personal,  like  his  laborious  lugging  in 
of  Tom  Moore's  false  couplet,  which  had  naught  to  do 
with  a  history  of  "  Diplomacy." 

It  will  be  noted  that  Jefferson,  to  whom  the  real 
credit  is  due  for  setting  forth,  in  the  ablest  State 
paper  ever  written  —  in  a  way  so  masterly  that  it 
has  never  been  improved  on  —  the  whole  doctrine  of 
neutrality  and  its  special  advantages  to  us,  is  not 
given  the  credit  by  Mr.  Foster.  The  truth  is  that,  as 
far  as  our  foreign  relations  under  Washington  are 
concerned,  they  were,  for  the  most  part,  an  expression 
of  Jefferson's  policies. 

In  proof  of  what  I  say  here,  read  the  unequalled  state 
ment  by  Mr.  Jefferson  as  President  of  the  duties  of  a 
neutral:  — 

"  Let  it  be  our  endeavor,  as  it  is  our  interest  and  desire,  to  culti 
vate  the  friendship  of  the  belligerent  nations  by  every  act  of  justice 
and  of  innocent  kindness;  to  receive  their  armed  vessels  with  hospi 
tality,  from  the  distresses  of  the  sea,  but  to  administer  the  means 
of  annoyance  to  none;  to  establish  in  our  harbors  such  a  police  as 
may  maintain  law  and  order;  to  restrain  our  citizens  from  embarking 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  123 

individually  in  a  war  in  which  their  country  takes  no  part;  to  punish 
severely  those  persons,  citizens  or  aliens,  who  shall  usurp  the  cover 
of  our  flag  for  vessels  not  entitled  to  it,  infecting  thereby  with 
suspicion  those  of  real  Americans,  and  committing  us  into  contro 
versies  for  the  redress  of  wrongs  not  our  own;  to  exact  from  every 
nation  the  observance,  towards  our  vessels  and  citizens,  of  those 
principles  and  practices  which  all  civilized  nations  acknowledge; 
to  merit  the  character  of  a  just  nation,  and  maintain  that  of  an 
independent  one,  preferring  every  consequence  to  insult  and 
habitual  wrong." 

And  these  further  lines,  where  he  tells  how  neutral 
conduct  especially  redounds  to  the  interest  of  this 
country  and  its  people:  — 

"Separated  by  a  wide  ocean  from  the  nations  of  Europe,  and 
from  the  political  interests  which  entangle  them  together,  with  pro 
ductions  and  wants  which  render  our  commerce  and  friendship 
useful  to  them,  and  theirs  to  us,  it  cannot  be  the  interest  of  any  to 
assail  us,  nor  ours  to  disturb  them.  We  should  be  most  unwise, 
indeed,  were  we  to  cast  away  the  singular  blessings  of  the  position 
in  which  nature  has  placed  us,  the  opportunity  she  has  endowed  us 
with,  of  pursuing,  at  a  distance  from  foreign  contentions,  the  paths 
of  industry,  peace  and  happiness;  of  cultivating  general  friendship; 
and  of  bringing  collisions  of  interest  to  the  umpirage  of  reason  rather 
than  of  force.  How  desirable,  then,  must  it  be,  in  a  government 
like  ours,  to  see  its  citizens  adopt,  individually,  the  views,  the  in 
terests,  and  the  conduct,  which  their  country  should  pursue,  divest 
ing  themselves  of  those  passions  and  partialities  which  tend  to 
lessen  useful  friendships,  and  to  embarras  and  embroil  us  in  the 
calamitous  scenes  of  Europe.  Confident,  fellow  citizens,  that  you 
will  duly  estimate  the  importance  of  neutral  dispositions  towards 
the  observance  of  neutral  conduct,  that  you  will  be  sensible  how 
much  it  is  our  duty  to  look  on  the  bloody  arena  spread  before  us, 
with  commiseration,  indeed,  but  with  no  other  wish  than  to  see  it 
closed,  I  am  persuaded  that  you  will  certainly  cherish  those  dis 
positions  in  all  discussions  among  yourselves,  and  in  all  commu 
nications  with  your  constituents/' 


124      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

And  yet,  "history-writers,"  as  the  children  call 
them,  of  the  Federalistic  type,  represent  him  as  having 
been  "  forced  to  a  system  of  neutrality  by  the  Presi 
dent."  The  truth  is  that,  although  the  bulk  of  Jeffer 
son's  party  were  carried  off  their  feet  temporarily  by 
sympathy  with  France  and  though  her  people  had  his 
heart-felt  good  wishes,  he  never  permitted  his  gaze  to 
be  deflected  from  the  interests  of  his  own  country. 

When  Genet  carried  things  entirely  too  far  and  threat 
ened  to  "  appeal  from  the  President  to  the  people," 
and  all  that,  the  question  arose  in  the  Cabinet,  as  to 
what  should  be  done,  and  here  again  Jefferson  kept  his 
head.  Knox  wanted  to  send  Genet  out  of  the  country 
"by  a  public  order  without  ceremony."  Hamilton, 
who  was  an  astute  party  manager,  wanted  to  publish 
the  correspondence  on  both  sides,  accompanied  by  a 
statement  on  the  part  of  the  Government  of  its  pro 
ceedings,  in  order  to  arouse  popular  feeling  against 
France  —  rightly  counting  that  the  people  would  not, 
in  their  anger  at  Genet's  treatment  of  Washington, 
distinguish  between  France  and  her  Minister.  Jeffer 
son  coolly  advised  that  the  usual  course  be  pursued, 
which  was  that  we  send  an  account  of  the  affair  to  the 
French  Government,  and  demand  the  recall  of  Genet. 
George  Washington,  cool-headed  himself  on  this  oc 
casion,  and  on  most  occasions  —  though  not  on  all  — 
sided  with  Jefferson.  The  complaint  and  the  demand 
were  made.  They  were  acceded  to.  Genet  was 
recalled,  and  that  tempest  in  a  tea-pot  became  com 
paratively  a  calm. 

In  Jefferson's  communication  to  the  American 
Commissioners  at  Madrid,  on  June  30th,  he  uses  this 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  125 

language,  which  should,  if  it  does  not,  constitute 
permanently  a  part  of  the  very  soul  of  our  relations  with 
foreign  nations:  — 

"We  love  and  we  value  peace;  we  know  its  blessings  from  ex 
perience;  we  abhor  the  follies  of  war,  and  are  not  untried  in  its 
distresses  and  calamities.  Unmeddling  with  the  affairs  of  other 
nations,  we  have  hoped  that  our  distance  and  our  disposition  would 
have  left  us  free  in  the  example  and  indulgence  of  peace  with  all  the 
world.  .  .  .  We  confide  in  our  strength  without  boasting  of  it;  we 
respect  that  of  others  without  fearing  it." 

That  is  crisp  and  lofty.    Its  style  is  Demosthenic. 

The  two  wise  heads  in  the  Cabinet  were  determined, 
if  they  could  help  it,  not  to  have  war  with  anybody, 
although  our  relations  with  Great  Britain  and  France 
both,  as  well  as  with  Spain,  were  becoming  daily  more 
and  more  embarrassing.  In  addition,  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  as  some  foreigner,  then  visiting  us, 
reported,  "were  all  either  Englishmen,  or  Frenchmen, 
and  none  Americans."  Washington  was  standing  firm 
and  prudent.  His  critics  said,  as  others  said  a  dozen 
years  later  of  Jefferson,  that  his  course  was  "over 
cautious"  and  "  pusillanimous." 

Jefferson's  request  for  the  recall  of  Genet  was  dated 
August  16th.  In  his  dispatch  he  uses  this  language: 
"If  our  citizens  here  have  not  already  been  shedding 
each  other's  blood,  it  is  not  owing  to  the  moderation  of 
Mr.  Genet."  This  from  Jefferson  had  greater  effect 
in  France  than  if  written  by  any  man  in  the  world,  not 
a  Frenchman.  Genet  was  not  only  recalled,  but  in 
such  spirit,  that  he  was  afraid  to  return  to  France,  and 
settled  in  America. 

While  Secretary  of  State,  in  a  letter  to  Chancellor 


126      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Livingston,  who  was  on  the  eve  of  departing  for 
France,  to  be  our  Minister  there,  he  wrote,  on  Sep 
tember  9th,  a  letter  upon  the  question  as  to  whether 
neutral  ships  should  make  free  goods,  in  which  he 
touched  upon  the  question  of  blockade.  The  letter 
has,  upon  the  whole,  constituted  the  American  doctrine 
upon  these  subjects,  though  some  of  the  reasons  given 
are  in  themselves  curious,  starting  out,  as  Jefferson 
always  liked  to  start,  from  grounds  of  natural  and 
abstract  right.  This  letter  is  well  worth  close  study. 
To  some  extent,  his  doctrine  concerning  contraband  is 
in  advance  even  of  the  present  European  practice,  but 
has  constituted  since,  in  the  main,  the  American  con 
tention. 

For  reasons  unconnected  with  Diplomatic  affairs 
Jefferson  had  determined  to  retire  from  the  Cabinet. 
Washington  had  thus  far  kept  him  in  office  by  appealing 
to  hun  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  the  part  of  a 
"general  officer"  to  resign  upon  the  anticipated  out 
break  of  war.  Madison  and  his  friends  had  added  their 
voices  for  a  far  different  reason.  They  wanted  his 
party  leadership  on  the  spot.  But  on  July  31,  1793,  in 
spite  of  the  solicitations  of  both  President  and  friends — 
the  ship  of  state  being  seemingly  in  safe  harbor,  so 
far  as  international  billows  could  threaten  her  —  he 
sent  in  his  letter  of  resignation  to  take  effect  the  1st 
of  September. 

On  August  6th,  after  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  the 
President  called  upon  him.  I  think  there  was  some 
thing  pathetic  in  George  Washington's  being  chained 
to  office,  as  a  post  of  duty,  and  trying  to  chain  Jefferson 
to  it,  at  a  tune  when  both  were  tired  nigh  unto  death 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  127 

of  it  all,  and  were  yearning  for  the  large  and  restful 
spaces  of  the  plantation.  He  seems,  even  after  all 
the  warning  he  had  had,  to  have  taken  Jefferson's 
letter  in  a  hurt  sort  of  way,  because,  upon  this  visit, 
he  expressed  his  repentance  at  not  having  resigned 
himself,  and  said  that  that  repentance  was  "increased 
by  seeing  that  he  was  to  be  deserted  by  those  on  whose 
aid  he  had  counted." 

Finally,  the  President  said,  that  if  Jefferson  could 
"only  stay  to  the  end  of  another  quarter,"  which  would 
be  till  the  last  of  December,  instead  of  the  1st  of  Sep 
tember,  the  date  fixed  in  Jefferson's  note,  "it  would  get 
us  through  the  difficulties  of  this  year,"  because  he  was 
"satisfied  that  the  affairs  of  Europe  would  be  settled 
at  the  end  of  the  pending  campaign  —  either  France 
being  overwhelmed,  or  the  coalition  retiring  from  the 
contest."  Jefferson's  party  friends  had  begged  him 
to  do  this  too.  He  had  positively  refused  them,  but 
a  few  days  afterwards  he  conceded  that  postponement 
to  Washington,  which  he  had  refused  to  them.  The 
President,  in  a  letter,  dated  the  12th  of  August,  puts 
in  another  plea  to  extend  further  the  period  for  the 
resignation  "until  the  close  of  the  next  session  of 
Congress,"  for  which  he  proffers  many  weighty  reasons, 
relating  to  foreign  powers,  Indian  disturbances,  and 
internal  policies.  This  persistency  is  touching.  Wash 
ington  concludes  his  letter:  "If  this  cannot  be,  my 
next  wish  is  that  your  absence  from  the  seat  of  Govern 
ment  in  autumn  may  be  as  short  as  you  can  conven 
iently  make  it."  All  this,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  many  months  had  elapsed  since  Washington  had 
lost  his  temper  and  sworn  about  Freneau,  since  Jeffer- 


128      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

son  had  entered  in  his  diary  that  it  was  plain  that  he 
wanted  him  to  dismiss  Freneau,  and  then  had  added 
these  measured  words:  "but  I  will  not  do  it,"  and  did 
not;  thereby  giving  Washington  his  choice  of  dis 
missing  both  Freneau  and  him,  or  neither.  Washington 
seems  to  have  understood.  Federalist  "history 
writers"  and  their  political  descendants  are  so  dense! 

On  December  21st,  the  President,  who  was  untiring 
in  his  persistency,  made  another  effort  by  letter  to  get 
Jefferson  to  postpone  his  resignation  yet  further,  but 
this  time  without  effect,  and  on  December  31st,  the 
last  day  of  the  quarter,  as  previously  determined, 
Jefferson  sent  it  in.  Read  that  letter,  following  it  with 
the  perusal  of  Washington's  reply.  I  think  the  reader 
must  agree  with  me  that  the  insinuations  and  charges 
of  historians  with  Federalistic  leanings  —  some  of 
them  writing  not  unrecently  —  that  Washington  "had 
grown  to  distrust  Jefferson,"  and  was  "glad  to  get 
him  out  of  the  Cabinet,"  that  Jefferson  "was  compelled 
to  resign,"  are  sufficiently  refuted  by  the  history  of 
their  relations  up  to  this  moment;  in  fact,  proven  to 
be  stupendous  ignorance,  or  else  stupendous  lies.  If 
not,  they  are  conclusively  refuted  by  these  two  letters, 
unless  the  reader  be  prepared  to  consider  both  men 
thorough-paced  hypocrites.  Jefferson's  was  dated 
December  31,  1793.  Washington's  reply  was  dated 
the  next  day,  January  1,  1794,  at  the  same  place. 

The  message  to  the  next  Congress  concerning  our 
international  relations,  which  was  sent  in  on  the  fourth 
Monday  in  December,  was  prepared  and  left  by  Mr. 
Jefferson  and  signed  by  President  Washington.  A 
draft  of  it  in  his  handwriting  was  among  his  literary 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  129 

remains,  as  was  also  the  Presidential  confidential 
message  containing  our  diplomatic  correspondence 
with  Spain,  which  was  sent  in  by  the  President  on  the 
16th  of  December.  On  this  same  day,  in  response  to 
a  resolution  of  the  House,  passed  February  23,  1791, 
Jefferson's  celebrated  "  Report  on  the  Privileges  and 
Restrictions  of  the  Commerce  of  the  United  States  in 
Foreign  Countries"  was  sent  in. 

When  Jefferson's  diplomatic  state  papers  were  sent 
to  Congress  their  tone,  their  total  want  of  any  foreign 
bias,  their  felicity,  facility  and  lucidness  of  expression, 
their  "  sweet  reasonableness,"  their  dignity  and  firm 
ness,  their  lack  of  either  bullying  or  cringing,  were  the 
causes  of  spontaneous  and  irrestrainable  public  and 
private  applause. 

Daniel  Webster  writes  of  Jefferson  as  Secretary  of 
State  as  follows:  — 

"Immediately  upon  his  return  to  his  native  country  .  .  .  his 
talents  and  experience  recommended  him  to  President  Washington 
for  the  first  office  in  his  gift.  He  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
Department  of  State.  In  this  situation,  also,  he  manifested  con 
spicuous  ability.  His  correspondence  with  the  ministers  of  other 
powers  residing  here,  and  his  instructions  to  our  diplomatic  agents 
abroad,  are  among  our  ablest  State  papers.  A  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  laws  and  usages  of  nations,  perfect  acquaintance  with  the 
immediate  subjects  before  him,  great  felicity,  and  still  greater  facility 
in  writing,  show  themselves  in  whatever  effort  his  official  situation 
called  on  him  to  make." 

Senator  Vest,  of  Missouri,  in  an  address  at  Columbia, 
Missouri,  on  June  4,  1885,  expressed  himself  yet  more 
glowingly. 

Even  Judge  Marshall  writes  grudgingly:  "This 
gentleman  withdrew  from  public  station  in  a  moment, 
10 


130     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

when  he  stood  particularly  high  in  the  estimation  of 
his  countrymen/'  and  then  goes  on  to  belittle  his 
grudging  concession  by  explanations,  which  do  not 
reduce  it,  but  do  reduce  Marshall. 

If  Jefferson  was  fortunate  in  the  time  of  his  retire 
ment,  as  Marshall  intimated,  credit  is  due  solely  to  Jef 
ferson,  because,  except  for  his  acts  and  efforts,  we  could 
not  have  emerged  with  peace  and  honor  from  our 
labyrinth  of  international  difficulties,  and  the  only 
fortunate  thing  about  it,  as  far  as  Jefferson's  fortunes 
were  concerned,  to  wit,  the  universal  applause  which 
followed  him,  could  not  have  existed.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  Jefferson  had  for  these  years  virtually 
controlled  the  foreign  policy  of  the  United  States. 
In  no  single  case,  that  I  can  find,  were  his  suggestions 
and  propositions  concerning  foreign  affairs  in  any 
essential  overruled.  He  went  reluctantly,  it  is  true, 
into  the  violation  of  the  French  treaties,  believing  that 
State  necessity  alone  justified  it,  but  he  saw  as  fully  as 
Washington  did  the  necessity  of  "  standing  out  from 
under"  in  every  possibly  honorable  way.  He  never 
did,  however,  dishonor  himself  by  denying  the  obli 
gations  of  the  treaties.  He  did  not  add  hypocrisy  to 
bad  faith.  He  simply  accepted  the  bad  faith  as  the 
necessity  of  the  situation,  the  less  of  two  evils.  A  man 
has  no  right  to  sacrifice  his  honor  to  save  his  own  life. 
But  a  public  servant  may  perhaps  sacrifice  the  word  of 
a  nation  to  save  a  nation's  life,  or  to  save  its  people 
great  hurt  —  militarily  and  institutionally. 

Washington  made  one  more  effort  early  in  Sep 
tember,  1794,  to  get  Jefferson  to  resume  his  place  in 
the  Cabinet.  This  was  after  the  latter  had  been  for 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  131 

some  time  in  retirement  at  Monticello.  He  did  this 
through  Randolph,  temporarily  Secretary  of  State. 
Jefferson's  reply  to  Randolph  is  worth  reading. 

After  retirement  Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to  Edward 
Rutledge,  on  November  30th,  lays  down,  in  connection 
with  the  Jay  Treaty,  a  diplomatic  principle  that  may 
be  fairly  considered  as  having  gone  permanently  into 
the  working  of  our  institutions;  a  principle  that  where 
a  treaty  is  made,  and  contains  in  it  some  promise  or 
undertaking  (like  the  payment  of  money,  for  ex 
ample),  jurisdiction  over  which  is  vested  in  Congress, 
Congress  being  a  free  and  independent  and  coordinate 
branch,  it  can,  within  its  sound  discretion,  comply 
with,  or  refuse  to  comply  with,  the  provisions  of  the 
treaty  by  making,  or  refusing  to  make,  the  appropri 
ation.  This  depends,  too,  upon  the  principle  that 
foreign  nations  are  affected  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  our  Government.  Jefferson  expresses  it  in 
these  words:  "Both  negotiators  must  have  understood 
that,  as  there  were  articles  in  it,  which  could  not  be 
carried  into  execution  without  the  aid  of  the  Legis 
latures  on  both  sides,  therefore,  it  must  be  referred  to 
them,"  and  that,  "these  Legislatures  being  free  agents 
would  not  give  it  their  support,  if  they  disapproved  of 
it."  Subsequently,  in  the  treaty  acquiring  Louisiana, 
he  as  President  obeyed  strictly  the  precept  here  laid 
down  for  others.  He  submitted  the  Louisiana  Treaty 
to  both  Houses,  "because,"  he  said,  "both  have 
important  functions  to  exercise  respecting  it." 

So  much  for  the  Jeffersonian  view  of  the  rights  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  concerning  treaties. 

Now  for  the  Jeffersonian  view  of  the  President's 
rights  respecting  treaties:  — 


132      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

On  the  19th  of  February,  1807,  President  Jefferson 
announced  to  Congress  that  a  treaty  of  peace  had  been 
agreed  on  with  England.  Soon  after  that  the  treaty 
which  had  been  negotiated  by  Monroe  came  over.  He 
found  to  his  surprise  that  it  did  not  touch  upon  the 
question  of  impressment  of  our  sailors;  that  Great 
Britain  did  not  disclaim  this  alleged  right.  He,  there 
fore,  took  the  responsibility  of  not  sending  the  treaty 
to  the  Senate.  He  was  much,  even  bitterly  criticised 
for  this  at  the  time.  He  acted  within  his  right ;  because, 
if  he  were  not  going  to  sign  the  treaty  and  had  made  up 
his  mind  that  he  would  not,  it  was  " love's  labor  lost" 
for  the  Senate  to  discuss  it.  The  precedent  set  by  him 
here  has  been  acknowledged  ever  since,  and  has  become 
engrafted  upon  our  working  institutions.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  Jay  Treaty,  under  General 
Washington's  administration,  was  also  silent  on  this 
head  of  impressment,  and  yet  Washington  signed  it. 
Jefferson  had  criticised  him  for  it.  His  own  conduct 
in  and  out  of  office  was  therefore  consistent. 

Jefferson  took  the  position  that  signing  a  treaty 
that  was  silent  upon  the  subject  was  an  acquiescence 
in,  and  therefore  a  quasi-recognition  of,  the  British 
claim  to  the  right  of  impressment,  and  that  it  was 
better,  to  use  his  characteristic  language,  "to  let  the 
negotiation  take  a  friendly  nap,  and  endeavor  in  the 
meantime  to  practice  on  such  of  its  principles,  as  are 
mutually  acceptable." 

Jefferson's  reason  for  rejecting  (by  not  submitting 
to  the  Senate  for  their  action),  this  treaty  effected  by 
Monroe  with  Great  Britain  on  December  31,  1806,  is 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  133 

expressed  more  happily  by  Henry  Adams  than  I  could 
express  it  myself.     I  therefore  quote  from  him:  - 

"That  a  people  like  an  individual,  should  for  a  time  choose 
to  accept  a  wrong,  like  impressment  or  robbery,  without  forcible 
resistance,  implied  no  necessary  discredit.  Every  nation  at  one 
time  or  another  had  submitted  to  treatment  it  disliked  and  to 
theories  of  international  law  which  it  rejected.  The  United  States 
might  go  on  indefinitely  protesting  against  belligerent  aggressions, 
while  submitting  to  them,  and  no  permanent  evil  need  result. 
Yet  a  treaty  was  a  compromise  which  made  precedent;  it  recorded 
rules  of  law  which  could  not  be  again  discarded;  and,  above  all, 
it  abandoned  protest  against  wrong.  This  was  doubtless  the 
reason  why  Jefferson  wished  for  no  treaties  in  the  actual  state  of 
the  world;  he  was  not  ready  to  enforce  his  rights,  and  he  was  not 
willing  to  compromise  them." 

In  April,  1794,  in  this  same  letter  to  Madison,  to 
which  I  have  once  referred,  appears  the  first  inkling  of 
the  central  idea  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  He  expresses 
the  view  that  "we  ought  at  the  proper  time  to  declare 
to  both  France  and  to  England,  that  the  French  West 
India  Islands  were  to  rest  with  France,  and  that  we 
should  make  a  common  cause  with  her  for  that  object." 
This  seems  to  preclude  the  idea  of  France's  voluntarily 
transferring,  as  well  as  of  England's  forcibly  acquiring 
them,  and  this  is  virtually  our  present  attitude  towards 
the  West  India  Islands:  " those  who  have,  can  keep; 
those  who  have  not  may  not  acquire,"  whether  by  war 
or  purchase. 

On  October  29,  1808,  Jefferson  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
Governor  of  Louisiana,  in  which  is  to  be  found  a  plain 
expression  of  the  principle  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
and,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  last  sentence  in  the  quotation 
which  I  am  about  to  make,  is  the  first  absolutely  dis 
tinct  expression  of  it  ever  made  by  anybody:  - 


134      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"The  patriots  of  Spain  have  no  warmer  friends  than  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  United  States,  but  it  is  our  duty  to  say  nothing  and 
to  do  nothing  for  or  against  either.  If  they  succeed,  we  shall  be 
well  satisfied  to  see  Cuba  and  Mexico  remain  in  their  present  de 
pendence;  but  very  unwilling  to  see  them  in  that  of  either  France 
or  England,  politically  or  commercially.  We  consider  their  interests 
and  ours  as  the  same,  and  that  the  object  of  both  must  be  to  exclude  all 
European  influence  from  this  hemisphere." 

In  a  letter  to  Short,  dated  August  4,  1820,  is  another 
anticipation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine:  — 

"From  many  conversations  with  him"  (Mr.  Correa,  appointed 
Minister  to  Brazil  by  the  Government  of  Portugal),  "  I  hope  he  sees, 
and  will  promote  in  his  new  situation,  the  advantages  of  a  cordial 
fraternization  among  all  the  American  nations,  and  the  importance 
of  their  coalescing  in  an  American  system  or  policy,  totally  independ 
ent  of  and  unconnected  with  that  of  Europe.  The  day  is  not  distant, 
when  we  may  formally  require  a  meridian  of  partition  through  the 
ocean  which  separates  the  two  hemispheres,  on  the  hither  side  of 
which  no  European  gun  shall  ever  be  heard,  nor  an  American  on 
the  other;  and  when,  during  the  rage  of  the  eternal  wars  of  Europe, 
the  lion  and  the  lamb,  within  our  regions,  shall  lie  down  together  in 
peace." 

In  another  letter  to  Short,  dated  August  20,  1820,  he 
speaks  of  the  "  essential  policy  of  interdicting  in  the 
seas  and  territories  of  both  Americas  the  ferocious  and 
sanguinary  contests  of  Europe."  This  is  very  much 
like  the  language  he  wrote  to  Monroe  in  1823,  to  wit: 
"Our  first  and  fundamental  maxims  should  be  never  to 
entangle  ourselves  in  the  broils  of  Europe;  our  second, 
never  to  suffer  Europe  to  interfere  in  Cis-Atlantic 
affairs." 

In  the  Fortnightly  Review,  No.  5,  Vol.  70,  pages  357 
to  368,  may  be  found  an  interesting  and  authoritative 
article  by  Theodore  A.  Cook  on  "The  Original  Intention 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  135 

of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,"  as  evinced  by  the  correspond 
ence  of  Monroe  with  Jefferson  and  Madison.  Mr.  Cook 
shows  clearly  that  it  was  Jefferson's  position,  clear  and 
decisive,  rather  than  the  more  cautious  one  of  Madison, 
or  that  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  that  was  taken  by  the 
President. 

By  the  time  then  that,  under  Monroe's  admin 
istration,  it  had  become  necessary  for  us  to  decide  on 
our  attitude,  if  the  Holy  Alliance  should  undertake  to 
interfere  in  Spain's  behalf  against  her  South  American 
colonies,  which  had  declared  and  partially  effected  their 
independence,  Jefferson  was  prepared  in  set  opinion  for 
the  event.  Monroe,  who  generally  met  Jefferson  every 
Spring  and  consulted  with  him  verbally,  but  had  not 
been  able  to  do  so  this  year,  wrote  him  two  letters  upon 
this  subject.  Jefferson's  replies  are  memorable,  since 
his  suggestions  make  the  very  soul  of  the  subsequent 
declaration,  which  came  to  be  known  as  "the  Monroe 
Doctrine,"  and  for  which  Monroe  deserved  the  credit 
because  his  was  the  responsibility.  Jefferson  goes 
somewhat  further  than  the  President  and  his  Cabinet 
thought  prudent  to  follow. 

Meantime  Canning  made  his  proposition,  which  was, 
in  substance,  that  America  should  declare  that  she 
would  regard  the  intervention  of  the  powers  consti 
tuting  the  Holy  Alliance,  as  an  unfriendly  act,  and 
intimated  that  Great  Britain  would  stand  with  us 
behind  the  announcement.  The  President  thereupon 
had  written  to  Mr.  Jefferson  his  second  letter  and,  on 
October  24th,  Jefferson  wrote  him  a  reply,  in  whiclAhe 
Monroe  Doctrine  stands  full  born:  — 


136     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"Dear  Sir: 

"The  question  presented  by  the  letters  you  have  sent  me  is 
the  most  momentous  which  has  ever  been  offered  to  my  contempla 
tion  since  that  of  Independence.  That  made  us  a  nation,  this  sets 
our  compass  and  points  the  course  which  we  are  to  steer  through  the 
ocean  of  time  opening  upon  us.  And  never  could  we  embark  on  it 
under  circumstances  more  auspicious.  Our  first  and  fundamental 
maxim  should  be,  never  to  entangle  ourselves  in  the  broils  of  Europe. 
Our  second  —  never  to  suffer  Europe  to  intermeddle  with  cis-Atlantic 
affairs.  America,  North  and  South,  has  a  set  of  interests  distinct 
from  those  of  Europe,  and  peculiarly  her  own.  She  should  there 
fore  have  a  system  of  her  own,  separate  and  apart  from  that  of  Europe. 
While  the  last  is  laboring  to  become  the  domicile  of  despotism, 
our  endeavor  should  surely  be,  to  make  our  hemisphere  that  of  freedom. 
One  nation,  most  of  all,  could  disturb  us  in  this  pursuit;  she  now 
offers  to  lead,  aid  and  accompany  us  in  it.  ...  Not  that  I  would 
purchase  even  her  amity  at  the  price  of  taking  part  in  her  wars. 
But  the  war  in  which  the  present  proposition  might  engage  us, 
should  that  be  its  consequence,  is  not  her  war,  but  ours.  Its  object 
is  to  introduce  and  establish  the  American  system,  of  keeping  out  of 
our  land  all  foreign  powers,  of  never  permitting  those  of  Europe  to 
intermeddle  with  the  affairs  of  our  nations.  It  is  to  maintain  our 
own  principle,  not  to  depart  from  it.  ...  But  I  am  clearly  of  Mr. 
Canning's  opinion,  that  it  will  prevent  instead  of  provoking  war. 
With  Great  Britain  withdrawn  from  their  scale  and  shifted  into 
that  of  our  two  continents,  all  Europe  combined  would  not  under 
take  such  a  war.  For  how  would  they  propose  to  get  at  either  enemy 
without  superior  fleets?  ...  I  could  honestly,  therefore,  join  in 
the  declaration  proposed,  that  we  aim  not  at  the  acquisition  of  any 
of  these  possessions;  that  we  will  not  stand  in  the  way  of  any  amic 
able  arrangement  between  them  and  the  mother  country;  but  that 
we  will  oppose,  with  all  our  means,  the  forcible  interposition  of  any 
other  power,  as  auxiliary,  stipendiary,  or  under  any  other  form  or 
pretext,  and  most  especially  their  transfer  to  any  other  power  by  con 
quest,  cession,  or  acquisition  in  any  other  way. 

Note  especially  the  last  paragraph.  It  is  broader, 
more  far-reaching  and  clearer  than  the  doctrine  as 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  137 

announced  officially  by  Monroe,  though  Jefferson's 
suggestion  contains  every  word  of  the  Monroe  decla 
ration  and  even  all  that  we  have  since  changed  it  to 
mean. 

Jefferson  set  the  precedent  while  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  forms  now  obtaining  in  the  Department.  They 
are  of  the  utmost  simplicity  and  thoroughly  democratic. 
A  Secretary  of  State  is  not  properly  addressed  even  as 
an,  "  Honorable,"  as  are  Senators  and  Representatives 
and  other  Department  officials.  He  is  "Mr.  John 
Smith,  Secretary  of  State,"  or  "John  Smith,  Esquire, 
Secretary  of  State."  We  have  in  our  State  Depart 
ment  no  bureau  of  ceremonials  and  etiquette  and 
precedents.  Such  bureaus  exist  in  other  countries, 
even  in  the  Republic  of  France,  as  well  as  in  the  Mon 
archy  of  Great  Britain.  In  France  there  is  a  man 
whose  special  business  it  is  to  introduce  Ambassadors, 
and  act  as  master  of  ceremonies  at  the  Elysee.  A  good 
many  snobs  regret  our  simplicity;  some  of  them  engaged 
in  the  service  of  the  State  Department  at  Washington, 
and  some  elsewhere  writing  or  talking.  It  has  also 
been  regretted  that  we  have  not  imitated  the  British 
in  some  other  respects.  The  British  Foreign  Office, 
for  example,  requires  its  clerks  to  know  German  and 
French,  and  the  degree  of  knowledge  of  French  required 
is  very  great.  This  cuts  the  British  Foreign  Office  off 
from  very  much  talent.  Some  of  the  best  clerks  in 
our  State  Department,  if  such  a  rule  existed  there, 
would  have  to  go.  Of  course,  a  knowledge  of  foreign 
languages  is  needed  in  the  translating  department,  but 
there  is  no  sense  in  requiring  that  all  clerks  should  be 
acquainted  with  these  two,  or  any  foreign  languages. 


138      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

There  exists  a  very  general  impression  that  other 
countries  have  the  advantage  of  us  in  diplomatic 
affairs,  because  they  have  greater  secrecy.  It  is  a 
mistake.  There  is  no  country  anywhere,  where  the 
public  knows  less  of  the  negotiations  going  on  in  the 
Department  of  Foreign  Affairs,  until  they  are  ready  to 
be  announced  or  communicated  to  the  Senate.  First 
as  Secretary  and  later  as  President,  Jefferson  insisted 
on  and  practiced  this  secrecy  in  preliminary  negoti 
ations. 

Our  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  —  which  is  what  our 
Secretary  of  State's  title  really  ought  to  be  —  has  one 
embarrassment  that  his  colleagues  in  other  countries 
do  not  have.  The  Senate  has  always  asserted  the 
right  to  amend  a  treaty,  as  well  as  to  ratify  or  reject  it. 
At  first  this  caused  a  good  deal  of  friction.  Canning, 
when  Prime  Minister,  read  us  a  regular  lecture  upon  the 
subject,  as  if  we  had  been  school  children  and  he  school 
master.  The  custom  grows  out  of  that  clause  of  the 
Constitution  which  says  that  the  President,  "with 
the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate/'  shall  conclude 
treaties.  The  Senate  has  construed  the  authority  to 
"  ad  vise"  to  be  an  authority  to  amend.  It  "  advises 
the  ratification"  "with  the  following  amendments"  etc. 
Jefferson  stoutly  maintained  the  right  of  the  Senate. 

Mr.  Jefferson  followed  the  British  example  of  using 
English,  as  the  official  language  of  diplomacy  in 
Washington,  and  by  our  Ministers  and  Ambassadors 
abroad.  Neither  our  Government,  nor  that  of  Great 
Britain,  has  ever  conceded  the  point,  that  "  French  is 
the  language  of  diplomacy." 

He  early  adopted  the  rule,  which  existed  in  some 


INFLUENCE  AS  A  DIPLOMAT  139 

other  countries,  of  "  first  come,  first  served,"  when 
Ambassadors  and  Ministers  came  to  confer  with  the 
Secretary  of  State.  In  Jefferson's  day,  however,  we 
neither  sent  nor  received  Ambassadors.  "  Minister 
Plenipotentiary"  or  " Envoy  Extraordinary"  were  the 
highest  titles  of  our  Diplomatic  Corps.  Here,  as 
always  elsewhere,  he  displayed  genuine  democratic 
simplicity  —  Jeffersonian  simplicity  —  no  mystery  — 
no  airs  —  no  set  forms.  Common  sense  and  kindly 
feeling  and  courteous  treatment,  constituted  an  all- 
sufficient  etiquette  for  foreign  and  official,  as  for  do 
mestic  and  private  affairs. 

The  letters  exchanged  between  Jefferson,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  and  Hammond,  as  British  Minister,  are  well 
worth  attention,  especially  Jefferson's  dispatch  to  Ham 
mond  dated  May  29,  1792.  In  it  are  many  things  of 
permanent  value,  besides,  it  is  one  of  the  most  care 
fully  and  convincingly  written  even  of  Jefferson's  great 
papers  touching  international  law  and  international 
relations. 

During  these  negotiations  at  one  time  Hammond 
suggested  the  idea  of  both  parties  giving  up  all  fortified 
posts  along  the  Canadian  border,  having  no  "posts," 
except  for  trading.  Jefferson  replied  that  this  "  ac 
corded  well  with  two  favorites  of  mine,  of  leaving  com 
merce  free,  and  of  never  keeping  an  unnecessary 
soldier."  Since  then,  this  policy  of  disarmament  on 
the  border  and  on  the  Great  Lakes  became  a  settled 
and  mutual  policy  of  both  nations,  and  I  doubt  not 
that  it  accounts  for  the  fact  that  we  are  soon  to  cele 
brate  the  centennial  anniversary  of  uninterrupted  peace 
with  Great  Britain. 


140      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

I  have  elsewhere  referred  to  the  repeal  of  the  Feder 
alist  naturalization  law  and  the  reenactment  of  the 
more  liberal  one.  The  effect  of  this  treatment  of 
foreigners  and  this  encouragement  of  unassisted  immi 
gration,  upon  our  growth  and  upon  the  amicableness 
of  our  relations  with  other  nations  and  upon  the 
material  welfare  of  mankind,  here  and  abroad,  cannot 
be  overestimated.  Mr.  Jefferson  elsewhere  expressed 
his  opposition  to  assisted  immigration.  The  restric 
tions  which  we  have  since  put  upon  immigration  would 
undoubtedly  have  been  favored  by  him,  as  they  only 
relate  to  the  health  and  character  and  intelligence  of 
the  immigrants,  or  else  to  the  preservation  of  the  Cau 
casian  race  from  the  infiltration  of  Oriental  bloods  — 
to  the  maintenance  of  a  homogeneous  population. 

We  ought  to  have  hi  our  midst  no  alien  races,  un- 
assimilable  in  lawful  wedlock.  Our  prohibition  of 
Mongolian  immigration  ought  to  be  extended  to 
Africans.  I  attempted  to  secure  this  hi  the  last 
Congress,  but  failed.  Political  reasons  —  or  Repub 
lican  party  reasons  —  the  fear  of  the  defection  of  the 
negro  vote  in  the  doubtful  Northern  States  —  account 
for  the  failure. 

Of  course,  the  grandest  diplomatic  achievement  of 
Mr.  Jefferson,  and  that  affecting  most  permanently  all 
our  institutions  and  our  destiny,  was  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana,  and  the  foundations  laid  by  him,  and  later 
built  upon  successfully  to  acquire  Florida.  For  the 
latter  I  shall  have  no  space  at  all.  The  former  I  hope 
to  treat  hi  another  lecture. 


CHAPTER  V 

JEFFERSON    THE    DEMOCRATIZER    OF    FEDERAL 
INSTITUTIONS 

STEMMING  THE   COUNTER-REVOLUTION 

JEFFERSON,  once  back  in  America,  as  soon  as  he  could 
get  his  bearings,  took  up  in  earnest  the  greatest  and  most 
successful  work  of  his  life  —  that  of  turning  back  the 
tide  of  counter-revolution.  His  stay  in  France  had 
had  but  one  political  effect  —  to  teach  him  by  contrast 
the  value  of  democratic  forms  and  a  democratic  spirit. 
His  every  act  and  word  after  his  return  was  a  call: 
"Back  to  the  principles  of  the  American  Revolution." 
Of  all  the  services  he  rendered  his  countrymen,  this  is 
that  for  which  they  owe  him  most. 

But  he  began  his  work  before  his  return,  as  his  letters 
show.  Already  while  in  France  he  feared  the  reaction 
which  had  set  in  at  home,  as  a  result  of  Shay's  Rebellion 
in  Massachusetts,  emphasized  later  by  the  natural 
effect  of  the  excesses  in  France. 

It  is  notable  that  Shay's  Rebellion,  as  it  was  called, 
which  was  put  down  by  the  people  themselves,  did  not 
result  in  the  death  by  the  act  of  the  civil  government  of 
a  single  man  engaged  in  it  —  but  it  did  discourage  — 
in  fact,  carried  dismay  —  to  the  hearts  of  many  men, 
who  had  theretofore  been  stalwart  supporters  of  popular 
government. 

Jefferson's  insistence  upon  simplifying  and  deraoc- 

141 


142     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

ratizing  the  federal  government  at  home,  in  the  very 
teeth  of  the  excesses  soon  occurring  in  Paris  and  of  the 
dangerous  reaction  in  England  and  America  —  in 
Austria  —  everywhere  —  showed  him  to  be  not  a 
visionary,  but  a  practical  man.  It  was  the  other 
people,  who  were  visionaries,  who  did  not  know  how  to 
adapt  the  blanket  to  the  weather,  who  wanted  to  limit 
our  liberty,  because  the  French  had  shown  themselves 
not  yet  fit  for  it. 

Parton  rather  humorously  describes,  in  an  article 
entitled,  "  Meeting  of  Jefferson  and  Hamilton,"  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  of  December,  1872,  the  situation  in 
which  Jefferson  found  himself,  when  he  reached  New 
York:  — 

"The  faithful  believer  was  now  at  Mecca.  But  he  did  not  find 
the  magnates  of  the  temple  so  enthusiastic  for  the  Prophet  and  the 
Koran,  as  more  distant  worshippers.  He  was  in  the  situation  of 
a  person  who  had  left  his  native  village  full  of  ardent  Methodists, 
himself  the  most  ardent  of  them  all,  and  returning  after  five  years' 
absence,  during  which  he  had  become  even  more  glowing,  finds 
half  the  people  turned  Ritualists." 

Parton  says,  that  it  was  then  in  New  York  "the  mode 
to  extol  strong  and  imposing  governments,  to  regret 
that  people  were  so  attached  to  the  town  meeting 
methods  of  conducting  public  business,  and  to  antici 
pate  the  day  when  America  would  be  ripe  for  a  govern 
ment  'not  essentially  different  from  that  which  they  had 
recently  discarded.7  r' 

Concerning  the  celebrated  passage  in  Jefferson's 
Ana,  in  which  he  describes  the  character  of  the  "  dinner 
table  conversations,"  where  "  politics  were  the  chief 
topic,  and  a  preference  of  kingly  over  republican 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    143 

government  was  evidently  the  favorite  sentiment." 
Parton  says:  "No  man  can  glance  over  the  memorials 
of  the  time  without  meeting  on  every  side  confirmation 
of  this  passage." 

The  proof  of  this  assertion  I  am  about  to  unfold. 
Powell  calls  all  this  "A  Suppressed  Chapter  of  Amer 
ican  History,"  and  says  there  was  "a  long  contest 
between  the  principles  of  monarchy  and  democracy." 
It  is  true,  and  our  difficulty  in  realizing  it  now  is 
found  only  in  the  fact  that  we  have  passed  so  far  away 
from  it.  To  Jefferson  chiefly  we  owe  the  fact  of  having 
passed  so  far  away  from  it. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1790,  soon  after  Jefferson 
arrived,  that  there  appeared  in  the  Gazette  a  series  of 
articles,  entitled,  "The  Discourses  of  Davila."  The 
newsboys  of  the  day  poked  it  and  more  like  it  under 
Jefferson's  nose,  and  John  Adams,  the  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States,  had  written  it.  One  of  the 
sentences  in  the  "Discourses  of  Davila"  was  this:  — 

"  Nations,  perceiving  that  the  still  small  voice  of  merit  was 
drowned  in  the  insolent  roar  of  the  dupes  of  impudence  and 
knavery  in  national  elections,  without  a  possibility  of  remedy,  have 
sought  for  something  more  permanent  than  the  popular  voice  to 
designate  honor." 

Another  sentence  is  additionally  to  be  noted:  — 

"All  projects  of  government,  formed  upon  a  supposition  of  con 
tinual  vigilance,  sagacity,  virtue,  and  firmness  of  the  people,  when 
possessed  of  the  exercise  of  supreme  power,  are  cheats  and 
delusions." 

Such  was  the  strength  of  this  great  reaction,  that  the 
old  time  radical  —  Adams,  who  had  written  these 
sentences,  had  become  "not  averse  to  a  life  tenure  for 


144      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

the  President,"  or  even  an  hereditary  tenure,  holding 
that  the  terms  of  office  might  be  extended,  "  until  they 
reached  the  life  limit,"  and  that  if  this  was  not  found 
sufficient,  they  should  be  made  hereditary.  (Mer- 
riam's  " Political  Theories,"  page  134.) 
To  quote  Adams  further:  — 

"  The  proposition  that  the  people  are  the  best  keepers  of  their 
own  liberties,  is  not  true;  they  are  the  worst  conceivable;  they  are 
no  keepers  at  all;  they  can  neither  judge,  act,  think,  nor  will,  as  a 
political  body." 

This  is  the  man,  who,  in  Revolutionary  times,  had 
said:  " Where  annual  elections  end,  tyranny  begins." 

The  point  I  am  making  is  that  words  like  these  were 
not  only  being  spoken  at  "  dinner  tables,"  as  Jefferson 
said  they  were,  but  were  being  deliberately  written  in 
books,  and  not  by  irresponsible  people,  but  by  great 
statesmen,  some  of  whom  had  been,  as  Jefferson  later 
said,  "  Solomons  in  council  and  Samsons  in  the  field," 
during  the  Revolution,  but  who  had  since  "had  their 
heads  shorn." 

I  believe  I  love  the  man  John  Adams  too  much  to 
quote  further  from  him,  but  you  can  find  more  like  it 
in  his  book,  "The  Defense  of  American  Constitutions," 
and  in  his  articles,  "Discourses  on  Davila." 

I  have  selected  Mr.  Adams  as  the  chief  illustration  of 
how  far  the  "Solomons  in  council,"  as  well  as  the 
"Samsons  in  fight"  —  like  Hamilton  and  Knox  — 
had  retreated  from  their  old  positions,  because  in  my 
opinion,  he  was  the  most  disinterested,  the  most 
patriotic,  the  sincerest,  and  the  least  designing  of  all 
the  great  reactionaries.  Much  more  extreme  utter 
ances  are  to  be  found  in  the  letters  and  public  addresses 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     145 

of  other  reactionary  leaders,  and  in  the  contemporary 
newspapers. 

For  the  first  eight  years  after,  as  well  as  for  some  time 
before  the  foundation  of  the  new  government,  these 
reactionary  views  were  popular  even  among  the  people, 
and  for  ten  or  eleven  years,  were  predominant  with  most 
of  the  educated,  and  nearly  all  the  wealthy  classes  — 
especially  merchants,  bankers,  importers,  fundholders, 
and  most  of  the  clergy,  in  states  where  the  church  was 
not  yet  disestablished  and  separated  from  the  state. 

It  is  paltry  to  say  that  Mr.  Jefferson  was  "over 
credulous,"  "frightened  by  shadows,"  or  "suspicious," 
when  American  public  sentiment  had  reached  the 
point,  where  a  man  publishing  Adams'  views  could  be 
elected  Vice-President  twice  and  even  President  once, 
and  where  men  professing,  without  concealment, 
Hamilton's  and  Knox's  views,  were  given  cabinet 
positions,  and  where  later,  Alien  and  Sedition  laws 
could  be  passed  by  both  Houses  and  signed  by  the 
President,  and  where  the  hold  of  "the  system"  upon 
the  country  grew  so  strong  that  it  could  be  shaken 
by  nothing  less  than  the  veiled  threats  of  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  Resolutions.  This  reaction  against 
the  principles  of  the  Revolution  was  especially  notable 
in  New  York,  the  first  temporary  seat  of  government. 

Lorenzo  Sabine,  in  his  "American  Loyalists,"  asserts 
that  "  beyond  all  doubt "  the  royalist  party  had  con 
tained  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  entire  State  of 
New  York.  Many  of  those,  who  had  been  loyalists 
during  the  Revolution,  were,  at  the  time  of  Jefferson's 
return,  amongst  the  ultra-fashionable  society  of  New 
York  city.  The  women  of  this  same  fashionable  society 
11 


146      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

had,  during  our  war,  welcomed  and  fraternized  with  the 
British  officers.  Moreover,  as  Randall  says,  "  Every 
well  informed  man  understands,  that  the  American 
Revolution  began  as  a  war  against  the  aggressions,  and 
not  against  the  form,  of  the  British  Government." 
Thus  many  honest  Revolutionary  Whigs  remained  at 
heart  "monocrats"  —  a  word  invented  by  Jefferson  to 
describe  a  class. 

To  some  extent  everywhere  the  reaction  had  set  in 
and  was  flowing  along  with  a  full  current.  Even  at 
the  meeting  at  Annapolis,  although  it  was  conceded 
that  the  sentiment  of  "the  populace"  in  America  was 
so  strongly  in  favor  of  republican  institutions,  that  a 
monarchical  model  could  hardly  be  expected  to  be  set 
up  successfully,  there  was  no  lack  of  talk  in  favor  of  it. 

Indeed,  even  before  the  Revolution  was  well  over, 
American  officers  had  entertained  the  idea  of  making 
Washington  king. 

John  Jay,  in  a  letter  of  January  7,  1787,  directed  to 
General  Washington  himself,  propounds  the  inquiry: 
"Shall  we  have  a  king? "  And  answers  it  with  a  quali 
fied  negative:  "Not  in  my  opinion,  while  other  expedients 
remain  untried." 

General  Washington  wrote  to  Mr.  Madison  on 
March  31st,  recognizing  the  situation,  in  these  sig 
nificant  words:  "I  am  fully  of  the  opinion  that  those, 
who  lean  to  a  monarchical  government,  have  either  not 
consulted  the  public  mind,  or  that  they  live  in  a 
region"  (meaning  New  England)  "which  (the  leveling 
principles  in  which  they  were  bred  being  entirely 
eradicated)  is  much  more  productive  of  monarchical 
ideas,  than  is  the  case  in  the  Southern  States."  He 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    147 

adds:  "I  am  also  clear  that,  even  admitting  the  utility, 
nay,  necessity  of  the  form,  the  period  is  not  arrived  for 
adopting  the  change,  without  shaking  the  peace  of  this 
country  to  its  foundation."  Even  this  is,  you  will  note, 
a  barely  qualified  negative.  Thus  it  was  not  unpatri 
otic,  even  in  Washington's  opinion,  to  hold  monarchy 
in  ultimate  contemplation  —  en  arriere-pensee. 

Madison's  report,  in  the  third  person,  of  Hamilton's 
speech  to  the  Constitutional  Convention,  exhibits  an 
advocacy  of  as  near  an  approach  as  possible  to  mon 
archy  on  the  English  model.  Read  it.  This  much  of  it, 
I  excerpt:  "He  hoped  gentlemen  of  different  opinions 
would  bear  with  him  in  this,"  and  then  this  language, 
significant  of  my  contention,  follows:  "and  he  begged 
them  to  recollect  the  change  of  opinion  on  this  subject  which 
had  taken  place,  and  was  still  going  on."  Madison  con 
tinues  the  report  of  Hamilton's  speech :  — 

"The  members  most  tenacious  of  republicanism,  he  observed, 
were  as  loud  as  any  in  declaiming  against  the  vices  of  democracy. 
This  progress  of  the  public  mind  led  him  to  anticipate  the  time  when 
others,  as  well  as  himself,  would  join  in  the  praise  bestowed  by 
Mr.  Necker  on  the  British  Constitution,  namely,  that  it  is  the  only 
government  in  the  world  which  'united  public  strength  with  in 
dividual  security/" 

But  this  was  not  all.  In  this  speech  he  paid  a  high 
tribute  to  the  British  House  of  Lords  as  "A  most  noble 
institution." 

But  this  wasn't  enough;  he  had  proceeded:  "The 
hereditary  interest  of  the  King"  (in  England)  "was  so 
interwoven  with  that  of  the  nation,  and  his  personal 
emolument  so  great,  that  he  was  placed  above  the 


148      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

danger  of  being  corrupted  from  abroad,  and  was  at 
the  same  time  both  sufficiently  independent  and 
sufficiently  controlled  to  answer  the  purpose  of  the 
institution  at  home." 

Madison,  whose  truthfulness,  as  far  as  I  know,  has 
never  been  elsewhere  denied,  says  that  his  report  of 
this  speech,  "as  above  taken  down  and  written  out, 
was  submitted  to  Hamilton,  who  approved  of  its  cor 
rectness,  with  one  or  two  verbal  changes,  which  were 
made." 

Mr.  John  C.  Hamilton,  son  and  biographer  of  Hamil 
ton,  as  a  part  of  the  general  attempt  to  suppress  this 
chapter  of  American  history,  does  question  his  veracity 
in  a  roundabout  way  by  calling  his  report  "a  very 
imperfect  report  of  the  speech,"  etc.  This  statement 
he  attempts  to  support  by  comparing  the  speech  with  a 
brief  of  it,  or  a  brief  of  some  undated  speech,  found 
among  Hamilton's  manuscripts  in  his  handwriting. 

Here  are  a  few  lines  from  the  brief  itself,  if  properly  it 
can  be  called  a  brief.  It  is  rather  " head-notes"  of  this 
or  some  other  old  speech,  just  like  head-notes  that  any 
one  would  make  upon  the  back  of  an  envelope,  when 
he  had  a  few  minutes  and  wanted  to  outline  the  scope 
of  an  extemporaneous  argument.  See  how  these  head- 
notes  in  Hamilton's  handwriting  demonstrate  the 
wonderful  accuracy  of  Madison's  long-hand  report. 
They  read:  — 

"Here  I  shall  give  my  sentiments  of  the  best  form  of  government 
—  not  as  a  thing  attainable  by  us,  but  as  a  model,  which  we  ought 
to  approach  as  near  as  possible." 

"British  Constitution  best  form." 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     149 

Then  he  puts  down  the  names  of  "  Aristotle,  Cicero, 
Montesquieu,  and  Necker,"  evidently  as  supporting 
authorities,  from  whom  he  proposes  to  fortify  his  argu 
ment.  Then  these  head-lines:  — 

"Society  naturally  divides  itself  into  two  political  divisions  — 
the  few  and  the  many,  who  have  distinct  interests.  .  .  . 

"If  government  is  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  they  will  tyrannize 
over  the  many.  .  .  . 

"If  (in)  the  hands  of  the  many,  they  will  tyrannize  over  the 
few.  It  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  both;  and  they  should  be  sepa 
rated.  .  .  .  (That  is,  two  Houses) 

"This  separation  must  be  permanent.  .  .  . 

"Representation  alone  will  not  do.  ..." 

The  next  —  and  this  is  the  milk  in  the  cocoanut:  — 
"And  if  separated,  they  will  need  a  mutual  check." 
And  clinching  the  nail:  — 
"  This  check  is  a  monarch." 

From  the  next  we  learn  that  this  monarch  ought  to 
be  "  hereditary."  From  the  next  that  the  advantage 
of  a  monarch  is  that  he  is  "  above  corruption,"  and  is 
"not  subject  to  foreign  influence." 

I  do  not  want  to  quote  all  the  head-notes  of  the 
speech,  but  letting  escape  a  few  that  are  non-essential 
to  the  argument  right  here,  there  follow  these  two :  — 

"It  is  said  a  republican  government  does  not  admit  a  vigorous 
execution. 

"It  is  therefore  bad;  for  the  goodness  of  a  government  consists 
in  vigorous  execution."1 

Hamilton  here  made  a  mistake,  which  so  many  people 
—  Pope,  among  others  —  make,  of  regarding  efficiency 

I8ee  "Life  of  Hamilton,"  by  John  C.  Hamilton,  Vol.  3,  page  280 
et  seq. 


150      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  administration  as  the  main  end  of  government. 
It  is  a  thing  that  ought  to  be  had,  as  far  as  can  be, 
consonantly  with  liberty  and  local  self-government, 
but  it  is  not  the  only,  nor  is  it  the  chief,  nor  anywhere 
near  the  chief,  end  of  government.  That  government 
is  "not"  "best,  which  is  best  administered." 

Thus  Madison's  report  of  the  speech  made  from  these 
notes,  while  it  was  not  verbatim  —  Madison  not  being 
a  shorthand  reporter  —  was  evidently  faithful,  and  was 
a  report  which  Hamilton  could  not  have  quarreled 
with.  An  examination  of  Yates's  Minutes  in  Elliott's 
Debates,  shows  that  his  report  of  Hamilton's  remarks 
agrees  substantially  with  Madison's  and  with  the  notes. 

It  will  be  noted  that  these  head-notes  are  replete  with 
Hamilton's  distrust  of  anything  like  democratic  insti 
tutions,  and  endorse  a  House  of  Lords  and  a  King  as 
things  to  be  approximated,  and  are  pregnant  with  the 
thought  that  all  government  must  be  maintained  by 
tying  to  its  purposes  the  self-interest  of  those,  who  con 
stitute  its  governors.  They  must  be  so  "highly 
rewarded,"  as  to  be  "above  corruption";  the  assump 
tion  being,  that,  if  not,  they  necessarily  will  be  cor 
rupted. 

Now,  of  course,  Hamilton's  plan  did  not  prevail  in 
the  Constitutional  Convention.  Every  material  propo 
sition  made  by  him  was  voted  down.  But  I  am  demon 
strating  his  reactionary  and  counter-revolutionary 
desire,  which  is  always  one  step  from  a  design. 

In  Hamilton's  plan,  offered  to  the  Constitutional 
Convention,  the  Senators  were  not  to  be  elected  by  the 
people  at  all,  but  by  electors,  and  these  electors  each 
had  to  have  at  least  a  life  estate  in  land,  or  a  leasehold 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    151 

estate  for  fourteen  years.  Senators  were  to  hold  their 
seats  for  life,  unless  impeached,  and  it  was  the  Senate, 
which  was  to  declare  war,  as  well  as  ratify  treaties,  and 
control  appointments.  If  any  man  of  the  utmost 
audacity  could  have  had  audacity  enough  to  propose 
to  the  plain  American  people  a  plan  more  essentially 
aristocratic  than  that,  it  would  be  curious  to  hear  it. 
His  President  was  to  be  elected  only  by  such  part  of 
the  people  as  had  an  inherited  estate  in  fee  simple,  or 
for  a  tenure  of  three  lives,  or  a  clear  personal  estate  of  a 
thousand  Spanish  dollars,  and  even  these  were  not  to 
vote  for  the  President,  but  for  electors,  and  the  electors, 
by  sealed  ballot,  for  the  President.  Then  the  electors 
of  each  State  were  to  select  second  electors,  and  these 
second  electors  were  to  carry  the  ballots  to  the  Chief 
Justice,  and,  in  his  presence,  open  them. 

The  only  advantage  about  the  scheme  was  that  this 
complicated  process,  with  which  the  people  had  so  little 
to  do,  was  not  to  trouble  them  very  often,  for  Hamil 
ton7  s  President  was  to  hold  his  office  for  life,  unless 
impeached.  Besides  having  the  powers  which  our 
President  has  as  chief  executive  of  the  nation,  Hamil 
ton's  President  was  to  appoint  all  the  governors  of  the 
States.  His  Federal  Government  was  to  designate  all 
the  State  judges,  or  rather  Federal  judges  in  the  States, 
vested  with  substantially  the  entire  judicial  power  of 
the  country.  Then,  in  order  that  his  House  of  Re 
presentatives  might  not  be  troublesome,  it  was  left  to 
the  President  to  convene  and  prorogue  Congress! 

Jefferson  has  been  accused  of  being  unjust  to  Hamil 
ton  because  he  said  the  latter  "favored  a  king,  lords 
and  commons."  If  this  plan  was  not  substantially 


152      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

and  really  one  for  not  only  a  king,  but  a  Polish  or 
elective  life  king  at  that,  and  a  substantial  house  of 
lords,  except  that  the  king  and  lords  were  not  called  by 
those  names,  and  were  not  as  yet  hereditary  —  only 
holding  at  first  for  life  —  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
anything  that  is.  Moreover,  there  was  virtually  no 
" commons"  at  all. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  of  the  defeat  of  his  plan  of 
government,  he  still  advocated  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  as  submitted,  because,  although  it  was 
not  in  accord  with  his  design,  it  was  the  best  attain 
able  for  him  —  much  nearer  his  model  than  the  old 
confederacy  —  and,  although  "an  experiment,"  was 
worthy  of  a  trial.  Moreover,  it  was  elastic,  and  could 
be  stretched  in  the  working.  Nor  did  his  view,  bent, 
or  design  cease  with  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
If  so,  when? 

His  friend,  Morris,  wrote  to  Robert  Walsh  in  a  letter 
dated  as  late  as  February  5,  1811:  — 

"General  Hamilton  had  little  share  in  forming  the  Constitution. 
He  disliked  it,  believing  all  republican  government  to  be  radically 
defective.  He  heartily  assented,  nevertheless,  to  the  Constitution, 
because  he  considered  it  a  band,  which  might  hold  us  together  for 
some  time,  and  he  knew  that  national  sentiment  is  the  condition  of 
national  existence." 

Wise  and  far-seeing  sentence  this.  Then  Morris 
adds,  speaking  still  of  Hamilton:  "He  trusted,  moreover, 
that  in  the  changes  and  chances  of  time,  we  should  be 
involved  in  some  war,  which  might  strengthen  our  union 
and  nerve  the  executive." 

From  his  standpoint,  of  course,  some  "temporary 
band,"  which  was  "to  hold  us  together,"  had  to  be 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     153 

adopted.  No  union  could  become  consolidated,  nor 
be  " strengthened "  and  rendered  more  "stable," 
either  in  peace,  or  "if  involved  in  some  war,"  unless  it 
first  existed. 

In  a  letter  to  Gouverneur  Morris,  dated  February  2, 
1802,  Hamilton  says:  — 

"Mine  is  an  odd  destiny.  Perhaps  no  man  in  the  United  States 
has  sacrificed  or  done  more  for  the  present  Constitution  than  myself; 
and,  contrary  to  all  my  anticipations  of  its  fate,  as  you  know,  from  the 
very  beginning,  I  am  still  laboring  to  prop  the  frail  and  worthless 
fabric.  .  .  .  Every  day  proves  to  me  more  and  more,  that  this 
American  world  was  not  made  for  me.  .  .  .  You,  friend  Morris, 
are  by  birth  a  native  of  this  country,  but  by  genius  an  exotic. 
You  mistake,  if  you  fancy  that  you  are  more  of  a  favorite  than 
myself,  or  that  you  are  in  any  sort  upon  a  theatre  suited  to  you." 

"Your  people,  sir,"  exclaimed  Alexander  Hamilton  at 
a  public  dinner  in  New  York,  smiting  the  table  with  his 
fist,  "Your  people,  sir,  is  a  great  beast!"  He  was  not 
the  only  one  of  the  reactionaries,  who  held  and  con 
tinued  to  hold  that  opinion. 

In  the  letter  from  Morris  to  Walsh,  dated  February  5, 
1811,  already  partially  quoted,  Morris  says:  "One 
marked  trait  of  the  General's  character  was  his  perti 
nacious  adherence  to  opinions  he  had  once  formed. 
.  .  .  He  never  failed  on  every  occasion  to  advocate 
the  excellence  of,  and  to  avow  his  attachment  to, 
monarchical  government."  Morris  adds:  "By  this 
course  he  not  only  cut  himself  off  from  all  chance  of 
rising  into  office,  but  singularly  promoted  the  views  of 
his  opponents,"  etc.  (He  means,  of  course,  elective 
office.) 

"Singularly  promoted  the  views  of  his  opponents." 


154      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

How?  By  establishing  the  truth,  which  they  asserted 
most  openly  always,  and  which  many  Federalists 
denied  then,  and  all  later,  that  there  was  "a  mon 
archical  party;"  that  is,  a  party  anxious  to  instill  a 
monarchical  spirit  into  the  American  frame  of  govern 
ment,  even  though  (which  would  itself  become  doubt 
ful  after  a  while)  its  outward  republican  frame  were 
to  be  maintained.  And  this  same  Morris,  in  a  letter 
to  Aaron  Ogden,  dated  December  28,  1804,  says:  — 

"Our  poor  friend  Hamilton  bestrode  his  hobby  to  the  great 
annoyance  of  his  friends,  and  not  without  injury  to  himself.  More 
a  theoretic  than  a  practical  man,  he  was  not  sufficiently  convinced 
that  a  system  may  be  good  in  itself,  and  bad  in  relation  to  particular 
circumstances.  He  well  knew  that  his  favorite  form  was  inad 
missible,  unless  as  the  result  of  civil  war;  and  I  suppose  that  his 
belief  in  that,  which  he  called  an  approaching  crisis,  arose  from  a 
conviction,  that  the  kind  of  government  most  suitable,  in  his  opinion, 
to  this  extensive  country,  could  be  established  in  no  other  way." 

Then  Morris,  a  reactionary  too,  and  partially  sym 
pathetic  with  these  views,  adds: — 

"  Experience  alone  can  incline  the  people  to  such  an  institution. 
That  a  man  should  be  born  a  legislator  is  now,  among  unfledged  witlings, 
the  frequent  subject  of  ridicule.  But  experience  .  .  .  will  tell  us 
that  men  destined  from  the  cradle  to  act  an  important  part  will  not, 
in  general,  be  so  unfit  as  those  who  are  objects  of  popular  choice." 

"But,"  it  is  said,  "these  were  theoretical  views." 
Yes,  after  the  holders  of  them  were  whipped  out  of  the 
political  arena.  Where  a  man's  real  faith  is,  there  are 
his  works.  What  the  heart  wills,  the  head  will  find  it 
hard  not  to  have  the  hand  try  to  do.  A  bad  theory  and 
an  imitative  practice  dwell  in  a  double  room,  with  sliding 
doors  between. 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    155 

Men  entertaining  such  " theoretical"  opinions  were 
not  at  all  apt  to  keep  a  republican  spirit  in  republican 
institutions,  much  less  to  go  further  and  put  a  demo 
cratic  soul-politic  into  a  republican  body-politic,  and 
Jefferson  knew  it.  He  wanted  not  only  to  republi- 
canize,  but  to  democratize,  and  he  did  it,  and  his 
election  in  1800  deserves  to  be  mentioned  in  history 
as  our  second  revolution. 

Jefferson  used  to  say,  that  if  "the  hoards  of  letters 
now  in  private  keeping"  should  ever  be  published,  they 
would  justify  his  suspicions  and  prove  that  his  con 
tentions  were  not  ill  founded.  I  think  the  student  will 
conclude  from  what  have  already  been  published,  that 
he  was  not  lacking  in  foresight.  How  many  have  been 
suppressed?  God  alone  knows!  Hamilton's  own  son, 
in  his  "Life  of  Hamilton,"  seemingly  without  appreci 
ating  it  fully,  published  many  of  the  letters  which 
establish  it.  Fisher  Ames  has  left  letters  behind  that 
speak  loudly;  so  has  Plumer,  so  has  George  Cabot; 
also  Christopher  Gore,  and  Timothy  Pickering;  and 
Thomas  and  Theodore  Dwight,  not  only  letters,  but 
public  documents.  Fisher  Ames  says,  that  the  Ameri 
can  people  trying  to  govern  themselves  "without 
separate  orders"  reminded  him  of  "free  negroes!" 
See  this  delightful  specimen  of  the  antique  in  Ames's 
"Works,"  Volume  1,  page  393,  and  another  letter  on  the 
next  page  to  Timothy  Pickering,  the  last  dated 
February  4,  1807.  Then  read  the  private  letters  of 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  sometime  Federalist  "Leader"  on 
the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  chosen  to 
lead  by  his  fellow  reactionaries  —  especially  a  letter 
to  Hamilton  of  January  27,  1803  —  "Hamilton's 


156      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Works,"  vol.  6,  page  552.  Then,  do  not  forget  that 
pussy-footed  old  Counter-Revolutionist,  Oliver  Walcott. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  conversation  which 
Jefferson  in  his  Ana  recorded  as  having  occurred 
between  John  Adams  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  from 
which  Jefferson  drew  the  inference  that  Hamilton  was 
not  only  in  favor  of  a  monarchy,  but  of  a  "  monarchy 
bottomed  on  corruption."  I  believe  that  the  report  of 
the  conversation  is  almost  literally  accurate,  although 
there  is,  of  course,  a  distance,  long  or  short,  between  a 
man's  praising  a  thing  and  his  wanting  to  put  that  thing 
into  operation  at  a  given  time,  or  in  a  given  place. 
The  conversation  was  this:  Mr.  Adams  said,  speaking  of 
the  British  Constitution:  " Purge  that  Constitution  of 
its  corruption  and  it  would  be  the  most  perfect  consti 
tution  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man."  Now  a  man, 
who  will  read  Adams'  work,  "Davila,"  his  "  Defense 
of  the  American  Constitution,"  and  his  letters,  and  will 
not  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  at  one  time  Mr. 
Adams  not  only  entertained,  but  actually  printed, 
just  the  view  here  attributed  to  him,  is  much  lacking  in 
impartiality  or  perspicacity,  or  intellectual  integrity  — 
one  or  all  of  the  three.  And  Mr.  Adams  is  not  the  only 
man,  who  entertained  then,  or  entertains  now,  that 
opinion.  Probably  twenty  per  cent  at  least  of  my 
readers  do.  I  entertained  it  once.  In  fact,  I  remember 
going  further,  and,  enraptured  with  the  glowing  rhetoric 
of  Edmund  Burke,  coming  by  an  eloquent,  if  not  a  wise 
route,  to  the  conclusion  that  even  the  rotten  borough 
system  in  England  was  a  blessing  —  a  sort  of  fortress 
for  conservatism. 

Now  what  is  it  that  Jefferson  reports  Hamilton  as 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    157 

replying?  " Hamilton  paused,  and  said:  ' Purge  it  of 
its  corruption  and  give  to  its  popular  branch  equality 
of  representation,  and  it  would  become  an  impracticable 
government.'"  The  word  Jefferson  used  was  " im 
practicable."  It  was  the  giving  to  "its  popular 
branch  equality  of  representation/'  which  was  the  thing 
that  would  make  it  "impracticable."  Remember  at 
the  same  time  that  as  the  British  Government  was  then 
practically  administered,  it  was  the  unequal  repre 
sentation  illustrated  by  "rotten  boroughs,"  like  the 
"Chiltern  Hundred,"  that  furnished  the  means  of 
"management"  and  control  by  the  British  executive. 
The  "conservative  classes"  always  —  the  ministry 
nearly  always  —  controlled  these  boroughs. 

Then  Hamilton  continued  in  these  words:  "As  it 
stands  at  present,  with  all  of  its  supposed  defects,  it  is 
the  most  perfect  government  which  ever  existed." 
Now  Jefferson  has  been  charged  with  "attributing  evil 
motives"  because  he  recorded  this  expression  of 
Hamilton's,  when,  with  the  debated  exception  of  our 
own  government,  everybody  will  assert  that  the 
English  Government,  "just  as  it  stood"  in  Hamilton's 
day,  with  all  its  admitted  corruption,  was  "the  most 
perfect  government"  in  its  "practical"  workings, 
' '  which  had  ever  existed  "  up  to  that  time.  No  man  was 
guilty  of  a  crime,  or  treason,  or  an  "evil  motive,"  be 
cause  he  believed,  what  so  many  then  believed,  including 
Montesquieu  and  Necker.  I  am  as  certain  that  Hamil 
ton  said  it,  as  I  am  that  Edmund  Burke,  if  seated  at  the 
same  table,  would  have  said  the  same  thing,  and  I 
draw  no  inference  of  personal  corruption  in  either  case. 
Go  back  and  study  your  Burke,  and  then  study  the 


158      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

literature  of  the  opposition  to  the  English  reform  bill. 
"  Whatever  is  old  in  years,  to  man  is  Godlike." 

Hamilton,  having  in  his  mind  that  the  House  of 
Commons  had  to  be  " managed/7  as  the  ministers  of 
Great  Britain  called  it,  would  have  been  wiser  than 
he,  with  his  distrust  of  this  " great  beast"  —  "the 
people"  —  with  his  lack  of  imagination  and  original 
constructiveness,  could  have  been  expected  at  that  day 
to  be,  if  he  had  not  likewise  thought,  that  our  House  of 
Representatives  would  have  to  be  "managed"  in  order 
to  keep  our  new  government  from  being  "impractic 
able."  Now  remember  that,  in  this  quotation,  Jeffer 
son  does  not  accuse  Hamilton  of  being  personally 
corrupt,  or  of  any  other  vice,  or  crime,  or  fault,  save 
that  of  opinion.  Jefferson  wrote  of  him  in  these  same 
memoirs;  "Hamilton  was  indeed  a  singular  character. 
Of  acute  understanding,  disinterested,  honest  and  honor 
able  in  all  private  transactions,  amiable  in  society,  and 
duly  valuing  virtue  in  private  life,  yet  so  bewitched  and 
perverted  by  the  British  example,  as  to  be  under 
thorough  conviction,  that  corruption  was  essential  to 
the  government  of  a  nation."  Old  Sir  Robert  Walpole, 
a  thoroughly  honest  man  personally,  was  under  pre 
cisely  the  same  "thorough  conviction,"  and  Hamilton's 
whole  policy  convinces  me  that  he  was  too,  with  this 
difference:  that  Hamilton  would  perhaps  not  have 
bought  a  man's  vote  outright,  as  Sir  Robert  made  no 
bones  of  doing.  But  he  counted  it  a  public  gain  when, 
by  giving  a  position  in  the  Treasury  to  a  man  here,  or 
interesting  a  man  there,  as  a  director  or  stockholder  of 
the  United  States  Bank,  or  as  a  holder  of  public  funds, 
he  had  secured  in  the  representative  assembly  an 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    159 

adherent  of  "  government,"  as  he  called  it.  The  chief 
aim  of  his  policy  was  to  marry  interests  to  the  government, 
and  it  was  to  be  done  by  management  and  legislation. 
He  deemed  it  necessary  and  wise ;  Jefferson  did  not.  The 
latter  saw  corruption  in  its  effect,  whatever  its  intent. 
Hamilton  deemed  Jefferson  a  hypocrite,  when  he 
professed  that  he  wanted  to  " bottom  government"  on 
reason  and  the  popular  will  alone.  Indeed,  half  the 
politicians  today,  though  they  profess  —  as  Hamilton 
did  not  —  allegiance  to  Jefferson's  principles,  do  not 
entertain  them,  and  being  conscious  hypocrites  them 
selves,  conclude  that  those,  who  do  not  only  profess, 
but  believe  them,  are  in  the  same  class  with  themselves. 
Hamilton  became  the  idol  of  the  monied  class.  It 
was  no  wonder  that  Fisher  Ames,  who  understood  him 
and  his  policy,  wrote  to  him  on  July  31,  1791,  a  letter 
which  can  be  found  in  Hamilton's  "  Works,"  Volume  5, 
page  473,  containing  these  words :  — 

"All  the  influence  of  the  moneyed  men  ought  to  be  wrapped  up 
in  the  union  and  in  one  bank.  .  .  .  The  success  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  and  especially  measures  proceeding  from  your 
department  has  astonished  the  multitude." 

Poor  old  multitude!  As  usual,  all  it  got  out  of  it 
was  astonishment!  Nearly,  or  quite,  half  of  us  have 
come  by  now  to  know,  that  the  very  A  B  C  of  political 
reform  must  consist  in  the  divorce  of  government  from 
"big  business"  and  of  "big  business"  from  "big 
politics,"  and,  therefore,  it  looks  corruptive,  if  not 
corrupt,  to  us,  as  it  did  to  Jefferson,  so  far  in  advance  of 
us,  that  a  man  should  pursue  a  persistent  plan  of  marry 
ing  them  together.  But  it  was  different  then.  We  are 
to  remember  that  in  Hamilton's  and  Jefferson's  day 


160      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

even  the  proud  Earl  of  Chatham  —  the  elder  Pitt  —  in 
his  somewhat  contemptuous  way,  to  be  sure,  but  none 
the  less  actually  —  cooperated  with  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  in  "  carrying  on  His  Majesty 's  Govern 
ment."  Pitt,  the  Empire-builder,  uttered  day  by  day 
words  of  eloquent  wisdom  and  initiated  great  measures 
of  statesmanship.  Newcastle,  day  by  day,  " managed" 
the  House,  in  a  notoriously  corrupt  way,  to  which  Chat 
ham  could  not  have  been  blind.  He  despised  the  system 
and  Newcastle  both;  but  he  accepted  both  as  "some 
thing  that  was  and  is  and  must  be,"  in  order  that  he 
and  the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  Great  Britain  might  lift 
up  her  Empire,  enlarge  her  trade,  and  even  extend  the 
empire  of  liberty  for  the  human  race.  He  had  to  have 
a  fulcrum  on  which  to  rest  his  lever  —  a  parliamentary 
majority. 

There  is  no  doubt  about  the  fact  that  General 
Washington  believed  that  the  monarchical  party  had 
quit  struggling,  after  the  adoption  of  the  new  Consti 
tution.  There  is  equally  no  doubt  that,  as  to  a  great 
many  of  them,  he  was,  as  Jefferson  told  him,  mistaken. 

Designs,  or  desires,  like  these  seem  so  absurd  from 
our  present  viewpoint,  that  it  is  hard  for  anyone  to  put 
himself  back  in  history  to  the  place,  where  they  were 
not  only  actual,  but  natural. 

The  reader  is  better  prepared  now,  I  hope,  to  under 
stand  the  situation  of  things  in  Washington's  Cabinet, 
and  to  understand  Jefferson's  purpose,  and  how  he 
came,  little  by  little,  to  be  the  head  of  a  great  de 
mocratizing  party  —  ' '  The  Democratic-Republican  " 
Party  —  not  Republican  alone. 

Hamilton  intended  that  the  "Treasury  Measures" 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    161 

should  have  another  effect  besides  that  of  "  strength 
ening  the  public  credit."  They  were  to  tie  vast  monied 
interests  to  " government"  (and  remember  that  the 
word  " Government"  was  then  much  used  in  the 
English  sense  —  of  administration) .  In  this  connection, 
I  recommend  the  following  utterances  from  Senator 
Lodge's  "History  of  the  United  States"  in  the  "History 
of  Nations"  series,  which  occur  in  comment  upon  Hamil 
ton's  scheme  for  Federal  assumption  of  the  State  debts: 
"This  final  proposition,  not  only  was  wise  financially, 
as  it  was  intended  to  be,  but  was  also  a  powerful  instru 
ment  of  consolidating  the  government."  Note  that  this  is 
just  what  Jefferson  said  it  was  intended  to  be. 

Hamilton  was  watchful  of  the  government  itself, 
lest  it  be  weak  enough  to  chance  being  overthrown  by 
the  people,  and  was  anxious  to  buttress  it  strongly  — 
invoking  to  its  aid  every  "influence"  and  "interest" 
possible.  From  Jefferson's  viewpoint,  the  things  to 
be  buttressed  were  the  elemental  and  natural  rights  of 
the  people  as  individuals  and  the  great  safeguarding 
right  of  local  self-government  —  and  the  chief  peril 
against  which  these  were  to  be  defended  was  the 
government  itself. 

On  page  353,  from  the  same  book,  by  Senator  Lodge — 
a  thorough  Hamiltonian,  by  the  way  —  occurs  this 
language  in  connection  with  Hamilton's  scheme  for  a 
national  bank:  "In  this  connection  it  ought  to  be 
repeated  that  aside  from  financial  consideration, 
Hamilton  had  ulterior  motives  in  wishing  the  national 
government  to  engage  in  the  banking  business  and  to 
assume  the  State  debts.  He  saw  clearly  that  both 
would  strengthen  the  national  government,  by  rallying 

12 


162      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

to  its  support  the  monied  interests  of  the  country,"  etc. 
If  he  had  added  right  here,  "and  of  getting  members  of 
Congress  and  Senators,  who  held  or  bought  up  public 
securities,  interested  in  governmental  measures,"  he 
would  have  made  a  full  statement  of  the  case. 

No  Federalist,  or  modern  Republican,  ever  regarded 
such  a  motive  as  the  one  stated  by  Senator  Lodge  to 
be  an  evil.  From  their  standpoint,  it  is  a  wise  and 
statesmanlike  motive.  From  Jefferson's  viewpoint,  it 
necessarily  tended  towards  plutocracy,  or  corruption, 
or  both.  Nor  did  Jefferson  think  such  measures 
necessary  to  "strengthen  the  public  credit." 

Even  Foster,  in  his  "Century  of  American  Diplo 
macy,"  page  149,  says:  "In  September,  1789,  Mr. 
Jefferson  reported  from  Paris  to  Secretary  Jay  that  the 
credit  of  the  United  States  at  Amsterdam  had  become 
the  first  on  that  exchange;  .  .  .  that  our  bonds  had 
risen  to  99."  Note  that  date  and  how  soon  after  the 
establishment  of  our  government.  What  did  Hamil 
ton's  treasury  schemes,  yet  unborn,  have  to  do  with 
that?  As  far  as  foreign  and  domestic  evidences  of  the 
United  States  debt  were  concerned,  domestic  tran- 
quility,  an  established  and  stable  government,  with 
power  to  tax  individuals,  so  as  to  have  a  treasury  with 
money  in  it,  the  consequent  ability  to  pay,  and  the 
immediate  illustration  of  that  ability,  by  promptly 
meeting  interest  and  arrears,  would  have  brought  them 
to  par  anyhow. 

In  one  of  his  anonymous  newspaper  articles,  Hamil 
ton  charged  that  Jefferson  was  "originally  and  con 
tinuously  an  opponent  of  the  adoption  of  the  present 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  How  absolutely 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     163 

untrue  this  accusation  is  we  shall  now  see  —  the  inquiry 
being  pertinent  to  the  democratization  of  our  Federal 
Institutions.  Jefferson  objected  that  the  Constitution 
did  not  sufficiently  guarantee  the  preservation  of  indi 
vidual  rights  —  "the  inherent  and  inalienable  rights 
of  the  people"  —  which  had  been  protected  in  Great 
Britain  by  a  Bill  of  Rights,  and  that  a  Bill  of  Rights 
ought  to  be  embodied  in  our  Constitution.  This  was 
done.  Jefferson  also  desired  to  have  engrafted  upon 
the  Constitution  a  provision  declaring  that  the  Federal 
Government  had  no  powers  except  those  granted  it 
(either  expressly  or  by  necessary  implication),  and  that 
all  other  powers  were  "  reserved. "  This  was  done. 
Now  the  chief  business  of  a  bill  of  rights  is  to  protect 
the  individual  against  unjust  governmental  action. 
The  authors  of  the  Federalist  do  not  seem  to  have 
realized  very  intensely  the  importance  of  that,  and 
yet,  in  so  far  as  the  judiciary  has  found  in  the  Consti 
tution  a  bulwark  of  protection  for  the  people  against 
the  despotism  of  the  Government,  or  of  popular 
majorities,  as  in  the  case  of  the  civil  rights  bill  and  some 
other  Reconstruction  legislation,  and  many  other 
enactments  violative  of  natural,  or  property,  or  labor 
rights,  this  bulwark  has  consisted  mainly  in  the  amend 
ments  to  the  instrument,  secured  by  Jefferson  and 
others  of  his  school,  and  not  in  the  original  instrument, 
as  presented  for  adoption  in  the  first  instance. 

In  Number  84  of  the  Federalist,  bills  of  right  are 
referred  to  as  "aphorisms!"  One  may  imagine  how 
this  sort  of  expression  would  grate  on  the  feelings  of  a 
man  like  Jefferson,  who  had  not  been  influenced  by  the 
American  counter-revolution.  In  the  same  number  of 


164      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

the  Federalist,  it  is  argued  that  under  our  government 
"  the  people  surrender  nothing;  and  as  they  retain  every 
thing,  they  have  no  need  of  particular  reservations." 
The  fact  that  we  still  hear  so  much  about  the  "  inherent 
powers"  of  the  federal  government,  even  after  the 
adoption  of  the  amendment  declaring  that  "  powers  not 
delegated  are  reserved  to  the  States,  or  to  the  people," 
proves  that  the  author  of  Number  84  of  the  Federalist 
was  wrong  and  Jefferson  right. 

In  answer  to  much  that  I  have  said  of  the  Hamil- 
tonian  views  and  desires,  or  designs,  his  articles  in  the 
Federalist  might  be  quoted,  but  in  these  articles,  one 
finds  not  the  political  philosophy  of  Hamilton,  but  an 
advocate's  plea  for  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
That  Hamilton  gave  it  even  this  support  is  a  tribute  to 
his  devotion  to  the  central  and  primordial  necessity  of 
a  union,  and  is  a  manifestation  of  intellectual  ability 
seldom  excelled. 

Still,  the  papers  in  the  Federalist  show  that  what  he 
and  Jay  most  dreaded  were  popular  movements.  They 
would  have  been  surprised,  if  they  could  have  known 
that  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  afterwards  our  Federal 
Government  woulol  be,  in  its  actual  working  and  legis 
lative  results,  the  least  responsive  of  all  governments 
over  English-speaking  peoples  to  the  result  of  a 
popular  election.  They  would  have  been  still  more 
surprised,  if  they  could  have  known  that  the  English 
Government  and  all  the  English  colonies,  at  the  end  of 
that  time,  would  furnish  systems,  where  the  executive 
itself  would  be  merely  the  mouthpiece  of  a  committee 
of  a  majority  of  the  legislative  representatives  of  the 
people;  that  within  that  time  the  House  of  Commons  in 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     165 

England  itself,  and  its  imitation  parliamentary  bodies 
in  all  British  colonies,  would  wield  not  only  full  legis 
lative  power,  unchecked  by  executive  veto,  but  full 
executive  power,  and  that  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
movement  in  the  United  States  of  the  present  day 
might  be  characterized  as  a  reaction  from  the  realization 
of  the  fact  that  this  is  far  from  being  the  case  with  us  — 
a  reaction  so  violent,  as  to  cause  many  patriotic  men  to 
advocate  the  absurdity  of  government  by  popular  ple 
biscite;  so  true  it  is  always  that  "the  best  cure  for  the 
evils  of  democracy  is  more  democracy;"  only  it  must 
be  democracy,  developing  of  itself  gradually  and 
sincerely,  through  the  free  play  of  representative  insti 
tutions;  and,  even  then,  it  can  find  its  only  secure  basis 
in  popular  education  and  the  general  diffusion  of 
information. 

Jefferson  also  at  first  wanted  an  amendment  to 
prevent  the  Executive  from  being  indefinitely  self- 
successive.  I  think  few  of  us  in  this  year  of  our  Lord's 
grace  will  challenge  his  position  in  this  regard.  He 
at  first  wanted  one  term  of  seven  years.  Then  later 
he  writes:  "Indeed,  since  the  thing  is  established,  I 
would  wish  it  not  to  be  altered  during  the  life  of  our 
great  leader  [that  is,  Washington],  whose  executive 
talents  are  superior  to  those,  I  believe,  of  any  man  in 
the  world,  and  who,  alone,  by  the  authority  of  his 
name  and  the  confidence  reposed  in  his  perfect  integrity, 
is  fully  qualified  to  put  the  new  government  so  under 
way,  as  to  secure  it  against  the  efforts  of  opposition. 
But,  having  derived  from  our  error  all  the  good  there 
is  in  it,  I  hope  we  shall  correct  it,  the  moment  we  can 
no  longer  have  the  same  name  at  the  helm."  The 


166      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

italics  here,  as  always  in  these  lectures,  are  mine  and  in 
dicate  what  I  believe  to  be  the  truth;  that  not  only  in 
Mr.  Jefferson's  mind,  but  in  the  minds  of  many  others, 
the  indefinite  reeligibility  of  the  President  owed  its  place 
in  our  Constitution  to  the  certainty  that  the  first  Presi 
dent  would  be  George  Washington,  and  that  no  term 
ought  to  be  fixed  for  him,  until  he  had  taught  the 
Government  "how  to  march."  In  his  older  age,  after 
retirement,  Jefferson  congratulated  himself  upon  the 
fact  that  Washington's  example  in  refusing  a  third  term, 
and  his  own  imitation  of  this  example  and  the  reasons 
which  he  gave  for  it,  would  constitute  a  sort  of  unwritten 
law.  This  it  has  thus  far  been  throughout  all  of  our 
history,  no  President  ever  having  sought  reelection 
beyond  the  second  term,  except  Grant,  who  was 
rebuked  by  his  own  party,  and  Roosevelt,  who  was 
rebuked  by  both  parties. 

As  usual,  however,  Jefferson's  own  language  best 
expresses  his  position  and  motives.  In  a  letter  to  John 
Taylor  of  Carolina,  he  says:  — 

"My  opinion  originally  was  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  should  have  been  elected  for  seven  years,  and  forever  ineligible 
afterwards.  I  have  since  become  sensible  that  seven  years  is  too 
long  to  be  irremovable,  and  that  there  should  be  a  peaceable  way  of 
withdrawing  a  man  in  midway  who  is  doing  wrong.  The  service 
for  eight  years,  with  a  power  to  remove  at  the  end  of  the  first  four, 
comes  nearer  to  my  principle  as  corrected  by  experience;  and  it  is 
in  adherence  to  that,  that  I  determine  to  withdraw  at  the  end  of 
my  second  term.  The  danger  is  that  the  indulgence  and  attach 
ments  of  the  people  will  keep  a  man  in  the  chair  after  he  becomes  a 
dotard,  and  that  re-election  through  life  shall  become  habitual,  and 
election  for  life  follow  that.  General  Washington  set  the  example 
of  voluntary  retirement  after  eight  years.  I  shall  follow  it.  And 
a  few  more  precedents  mil  oppose  the  obstacle  of  habit  to  any  one  who 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     167 

after  awhile  shall  endeavor  to  extend  his  term.    Perhaps  it  may  beget 
a  disposition  to  establish  it  by  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution." 

Also  these  words  by  Jefferson  ought  to  be  remembered 
by  everybody  in  connection  with  the  Presidential 
tenure:  "If  some  period  be  not  fixed,  either  by  the 
Constitution,  or  by  practice,  the  office  will,  though 
nominally  elective,  become  for  life  and  then  hereditary." 
This  doesn't  seem  so  "timid"  to  those  of  us,  who  have 
just  actually  witnessed  an  attempt  to  be  elected  to 
what  he  himself  has  publicly  counted  as  a  third 
term,  made  by  a  man,  very  popular  and  able,  who 
has  never  answered  the  question,  whether,  at  the  end  of 
that  time,  he  would  be  a  candidate  for  a  fourth  term, 
nor  whether  at  the  end  of  the  fourth,  he  would  be  a 
candidate  for  a  fifth.  People  who  laugh  at  Jefferson's 
"suspicions"  and  "fears"  and  "credulity,"  etc.,  only 
have  to  wait  long  enough  for  their  posterity  to  laugh 
at  them.  Our  office  of  President  would  probably  be 
as  Jefferson  at  first  feared  it  would  be  "but  a  poor 
edition  of  a  Polish  king,"  save  for  the  example  set  by 
Washington  and  the  reinforcement  of  this  example  by 
imitation  and  the  clear  statement  of  the  reasons  for  it 
given  by  Thomas  Jefferson.  If  we  had  begun  by 
electing  any  one  —  even  Washington  —  as  long  as  he 
lived  —  even  if  this  had  been  for  only  one  more  term  — 
he  dying  during  the  period  of  a  third  —  the  precedent 
of  electing  men  indefinitely  would  doubtless  have  been 
followed  in  the  case  of  every  popular  man;  undoubtedly 
in  Jefferson's  case,  if  he  had  permitted  it,  and  later  on 
in  the  case  of  Andrew  Jackson,  still  later  in  the  case  of 
Grant,  and  still  later  in  the  case  of  Roosevelt;  if  these 
men  had  ever  gotten  to  be  Presidents  at  all;  a  question- 


168      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

able  thing  but  for  the  contrary  precedent.  How  long 
it  would  have  taken  reflections  to  become  mere  matters 
of  form,  is,  of  course,  a  matter  of  speculation,  but  that, 
sooner  or  later,  they  would  have  become  so,  is  a  matter 
of  certainty. 

An  indefinitely  self -successive  executive,  easily  turned 
into  a  dictatorship,  has  been  the  rock  upon  which  the 
so-called  South  and  Central  American  " republics" 
have  split,  and  the  good  sense  of  the  American  people 
in  taking  the  advice  of  Washington  and  Jefferson  has 
saved  our  institutions  from  a  like  death  of  the  spirit. 
They  will  never  be  safe,  until  a  constitutional  amend 
ment  shall  be  passed,  confining  the  Presidential  term 
preferably  to  a  term  of  eight  years,  with  the  right  of 
recall  by  the  people  in  the  middle  of  the  period;  that  is, 
two  four-year  terms,  or  else  to  one  term  of  six  or  seven 
years.  Thus  far  the  people  have  said:  " Washington 
would  not,  Jefferson  would  not,  Grant  could  not,  and 
nobody  else  shall,"  but  the  danger  is  ever  present,  as 
long  as  there  are  adventurous  and  ambitious  and  able 
men,  conjoining  to  their  courage  and  ambition  and 
ability  great  popularity,  in  a  word  "  men  of  the  hour  " 
-  dangerous  in  a  "  crisis."  Unpopular  men,  of  course, 
have  never  been  dangerous  to  free  institutions  any 
where. 

Institutions  are  what  practice  makes  them.  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson  never  performed  a  greater  service 
for  the  permanency  of  American  institutions  than  this. 
In  Jefferson's  time  our  institutions  were  still  subject  to 
this  danger.  The  people  seemed  not  fully  awakened  to 
it.  Eight  State  Legislatures  had  passed  resolutions 
endorsing  Jefferson  for  a  third  term.  More  would 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    169 

have  followed,  if  Jefferson  had  not  discouraged  it. 
Even  Senator  Lodge  says  there  is  no  doubt  he  could 
have  had  it.  Washington's  precedent  and  Jefferson's 
ratification  of  it  have  constituted  what  has  frequently 
been  called  a  part  of  "the  unwritten  constitution  of  the 
Republic,"  like  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  words  in 
which  Jefferson  clothed  his  declination  are  wise  and 
patriotic  beyond  measure:  — 

"That  I  should  lay  down  my  charge  at  a  proper  period,  is  as 
much  a  duty  as  to  have  borne  it  faithfully.  If  some  termination 
to  the  services  of  the  chief  magistrate  be  not  fixed  by  the  Consti 
tution,  or  supplied  by  practice,  his  office,  nominally  for  years,  will, 
in  fact,  become  for  life;  and  history  shows  how  easily  that  degen 
erates  into  an  inheritance.  Believing  that  a  representative  govern 
ment,  responsible  at  short  periods  of  election,  is  that  which  produces 
the  greatest  sum  of  happiness  to  mankind,  I  feel  it  a  duty  to  do  no 
act  which  shall  essentially  impair  that  principle;  and  I  should  un 
willingly  be  the  person  who,  disregarding  the  sound  precedent  set 
by  an  illustrious  predecessor,  should  furnish  the  first  example  of 
prolongation  beyond  the  second  term  of  office." 

However,  already  in  Washington's  time,  the  third 
term,  with  its  indefinite  tenure  of  executive  office  had 
failed  the  counter-revolutionists,  as  a  political  recourse. 
They  could  no  longer  shield  themselves  behind  the 
great  name  and  character  of  George  Washington.  He 
had  retired  in  spite  of  all  solicitation  and  protest. 
The  Federalists  must  now  fight  their  battles  in  the  open. 
John  Adams  became  their  candidate  —  a  man,  who 
whatever  his  faults,  was,  as  Jefferson  once  said  of  him, 
"as  disinterested  as  the  Being  who  made  him."  No 
other  leader  on  the  other  side  was  thought  of  but 
Jefferson.  Adams  defeated  him  by  three  votes  in  the 
electoral  college.  Even  at  that,  three  electors  from 


170      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

States,  whose  people  had  voted  for  Jefferson,  voted  for 
Adams.  He  never  uttered  a  complaint.  Jefferson 
feared  nothing  actively  counter-revolutionary  in  the 
way  of  overturning  our  government  by  force  from 
Adams  personally.  His  confidence  was  justified. 

Jefferson  was  elected  Vice-President.  He  carried 
with  him  to  Washington  a  commonplace  book  of 
memoranda  of  parliamentary  rules  and  practices.  Out 
of  it  he  constructed  what  we  call  "  Jefferson's  Manual" 
—  a  manual  of  parliamentary  rules  and  practice,  yet 
the  guide  of  the  Senate  and  one  of  the  guides  for  the 
House.  It  has  permanently  affected  our  parliamentary 
practice,  and  thus  the  practical  working  of  our  insti 
tutions. 

Meanwhile  the  war  of  ideas  went  on.  Francis 
Walker  says  very  advisedly:  — 

"The  blunder  of  the  Federalists  in  enacting  the  sedition  law  was 
not  an  accidental  one.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  thoroughly  character 
istic.  It  sprang  out  of  a  distrust  of  the  masses;  a  belief  that  the 
people  must  always  be  led  or  repressed;  a  reliance  on  powers,  estates 
and  vested  interests;  a  readiness  to  use  force  —  all  of  which  were  of 
the  very  essence  of  the  aristocratic  policies  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century." 

At  another  place  in  Mr.  Walker's  very  readable 
book,  referring  to  Jefferson's  final  victory,  occurs  this 
language:  — 

"The  reliance  upon  estates  and  powers  within  the  common 
wealth,  which  was  of  the  very  essence  of  Hamilton's  philosophy  of 
government,  and  in  which  even  Washington  and  John  Adams  shared; 
the  disposition  to  resort  on  one  side  to  the  influence  of  wealth,  and 
on  the  other  to  intimidation  and  repression  for  checking  the  violence 
of  political  discussion:  these  things  were  to  disappear  and  disappear 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     171 

forever  from  American  public  life,  for  good  or  for  evil,  but  altogether, 
as  we  may  well  believe,  for  good,  in  the  large  and  long  result." 

"Whom  the  gods  would  ruin,  they  first  make  mad." 
The  Federalists  helped  Jefferson  in  his  fight.  They 
travelled  at  a  reckless  pace  in  their  reaction  against 
democracy.  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  were  working  to 
a  result  contrary  to  their  intent.  As  usual,  unless 
accompanied  by  overwhelming  force  —  so  great  as  to 
cower  men  —  governmental  tyranny  stimulated  the 
love  of  liberty.  French  aliens  fled  from  the  country. 
The  Irish  —  nearly  all  republicans  and  specially  perse 
cuted —  had  no  country  to  flee  to.  It  hadn't  been 
long  since  Emmett  was  executed. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  Freneau  incident.  A 
part  of  Secretary  of  State  Jefferson's  letter  to  Washing 
ton  concerning  Freneau,  is  pertinent  to  the  later 
Federalist  attacks  upon  the  liberty  of  the  press.  In 
it  he  administers  this  mild  reproof :  — 

"As  to  the  merits  or  demerits  of  his  [Freneau's]  paper,  they 
certainly  concern  me  not.  He  and  Fenno  are  rivals  for  the  public 
favor.  .  .  .  No  government  ought  to  be  without  censors;  and  where 
the  press  is  free,  no  one  ever  will  [be].  If  virtuous,  it  need  not  fear 
the  fair  operation  of  attack  and  defence.  Nature  has  given  to  man 
no  other  means  of  sifting  out  the  truth,  either  in  religion,  law,  or 
politics.  I  think  it  is  as  honorable  to  the  Government  neither  to  know, 
nor  notice,  its  sycophants  or  censors,  as  it  would  be  undignified  and 
criminal  to  pamper  the  former  and  persecute  the  latter." 

I  think  this  last  sentence  is  one  of  the  grandest 
ever  penned,  and  if  it  contained  a  suggestive  admonition 
to  the  Father  of  His  Country  himself,  I  do  not  the  less 
value  it  for  that.  Even  "fathers  of  their  countries,"  if 
sincere  republicans,  must  put  up  with  free  speech  and 


172      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

free  printing,  subject  only  to  the  restraints  of  the 
ordinary  laws  of  slander  and  libel. 

The  alien  law  gave  authority  to  the  President  to 
banish  from  the  country  "all  such  aliens  as  he  should 
judge  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  United 
States!" 

Jefferson  can  never  receive  sufficient  praise  for  having 
fought  these  measures,  and  measures  like  them, 
through  his  friends  upon  the  floor  of  the  two  Houses, 
and,  finally,  by  calling  into  action  the  protestant  powers 
of  the  States. 

A  part  of  the  permanent  influence  which  he  has 
exercised  upon  American  institutions  consists  in  the 
fact  that,  after  he  had  completed  his  work  of  antagonism 
to  this  legislation,  nothing  like  it  has  ever  since  been 
attempted,  except  once  in  a  smaller  way,  during  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt's  administration,  when  it  was  sought  to 
revive  the  spirit  of  the  sedition  laws  by  invoking  the 
aid  of  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  to 
punish  certain  newspapers  for  having  printed  so-called 
malicious  things  against  the  national  administration 
and  public  officials,  and  against  the  go-betweens  inter 
ested  in  the  French  Canal-Bond-Sale.  A  just  judge 
refused  to  be  used.  There  is  happily  no  such  thing 
known  as  yet  to  our  institutions  as  "libelling  the 
Government." 

As  to  the  alien  laws,  the  Chauvinism  which  consti 
tuted  the  spirit  of  them  was  revived  by  the  Whig 
leaders  of  the  so-called  "Know-Nothing"  movement, 
but  though  it  looked  for  a  while  like  a  prairie  fire,  fated 
to  sweep  all  before  it,  the  party  of  Jefferson  remembered, 
even  then,  enough  of  his  teaching  to  extinguish  the 
flames. 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    173 

The  most  fortunate  thing  for  the  country  that 
happened  in  Adams7  administration  was  that  the  war 
with  France,  for  which  we  had  made  such  great  prepara 
tions,  did  not  occur.  General  Washington  was  ap 
pointed  commander  in  chief  and  Hamilton  second  in 
command.  If  the  war  had  come,  the  work  of  de 
mocratization  would  have  been  halted,  perhaps  for  a 
time,  perhaps  for  all  time.  But  there  is  little  doubt  in 
my  mind  of  the  fact  that  it  would  have  made  Hamilton's 
choice  the  next  President  of  the  United  States  and 
himself  virtually  political  dictator.  There  is  equally 
little  doubt  of  the  fact  that  Hamilton  would  have  used 
his  great  power,  as  the  glorified  commander  of  a  suc 
cessful  army,  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  govern 
ment  stronger,  or  "more  stable,"  as  he  would  have 
expressed  it.  He  would  have  led  our  army  against  the 
Spanish  colonies  in  Florida,  or  Mexico,  as  the  Miranda 
correspondence  and  negotiations  prove.  In  fact,  it  is 
hard  to  see  what  we  wanted  with  an  army,  if  our  only 
purpose  were  to  fight  France.  As  long  as  she  was  at 
war  with  Great  Britain,  she  could  not  land  a  regiment 
upon  the  American  continent,  nor  did  we  want  to  land 
one  in  Europe.  There  was  and  could  be  literally 
nothing  French  in  America  to  fight  on  land. 

H.  C.  Merwin,  a  very  moderate  man  and  a  very  fair 
one,  speaking  of  the  time  of  our  anticipated  war  with 
France  under  Adams'  administration,  writes:  — 

"Hamilton  was  not  the  man  to  overturn  the  govenment  out  of 
personal  ambition,  nor  even  in  order  to  set  up  a  monarchy  in  place 
of  a  republic.  But  he  had  convinced  himself  that  the  republic 
must  some  day  fall  of  its  own  weight.  He  was  always  anticipating 
a  '  crisis,'  and  this  word  is  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  his  cor- 


174      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

respondence.  It  even  occurs  in  the  crucial  sentence  of  that  pathetic 
document  which  he  wrote  on  the  eve  of  his  fatal  duel.  When  the 
fatal  'crisis'  came,  Hamilton  meant  to  be  on  hand;  and,  if  possible, 
at  the  head  of  an  army." 

Nothing  can  account  for  the  fanatical  hatred  visited 
upon  Adams'  head  by  Hamilton  and  the  other  chief 
Federalists,  because  of  his  wise  and  patriotic  act,  unless 
it  be,  that  it  balked  deeper  and  further  designs. 
Nothing  was  left  to  fight  France  about.  The  amende 
honorable  had  been  made,  our  demands  upon  her  had 
been  acceded  to.  Adams  was  glad  of  it.  The  country 
was  glad  of  it.  Peace  ensued. 

Meantime  there  had  appeared  upon  the  scene  — 
flitting  ghost-like,  in  and  out,  first  on  one  and  then 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  conferring  with  the 
younger  Pitt  and  with  Rufus  King,  our  Hamiltonian 
Ambassador  in  London,  and  corresponding  unrebuked, 
indirectly,  and  then  directly,  with  Hamilton,  and  later 
with  President  Adams,  who,  in  his  honesty  and  patri 
otism,  sat  down  on  him  extinguishingly  —  one  Miranda 
—  a  Spanish- American  of  Caracas.  For  all  of  which  see 
Hamilton's,  King's,  and  Pickering's  letters,  but  above 
all  the  Edinburgh  Review,  Volume  13,  pages  287,  289, 
et  seq.j  and  study  Miranda's  subsequent  connection 
with  Aaron  Burr. 

But  for  this  peace  with  France,  there  would  have 
been  effected  the  British  alliance  proposed  by  Hamilton 
in  Washington's  Cabinet,  and  of  which  Washington  had 
said,  "the  remedy  is  worse  than  the  disease";  a  large 
army  would  have  been  put  on  foot,  with  Hamilton  at 
the  head  of  it,  and  probably  the  "crisis"  might  have 
happened! 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     175 

Meanwhile,  what  John  Randolph  called  the  "  Ameri 
can  reign  of  terror"  was  arousing  more  and  more 
indignation,  and  the  project  of  raising  an  army,  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  alien  and  sedition  laws, 
was  arousing  fears.  The  Republicans  knew  that  the 
counter-revolutionary  alarm  about  "a  French  in 
vasion  "  was  manufactured  to  furnish  a  reason  for 
raising  an  army,  and  that  the  army  might  be  used,  in 
a  way  dangerous,  at  any  rate,  to  the  Republicans  —  if 
not  to  the  Republic.  The  officering  of  the  army  did 
not  decrease  this  excitement.  It  was  known  that 
Washington  could  be  only  nominal  chief,  if  active  opera 
tions  in  the  field  had  to  take  place;  that  Hamilton  would 
be  the  real  chief  in  command,  and  that  his  assistant 
officers  —  every  one  of  them  —  were  Federalists.  Free 
speech  and  free  printing  had  been  already  attacked, 
judges  on  the  federal  bench  were  already  making  po 
litical  harangues  against  " democracy"  to  grand  juries 
and  petty  juries,  so  that  you  may  imagine  the  situation. 
None  of  this  distrust  and  anxiety  was  lessened  by  the 
fact  that  Hamilton  was  not  a  popular  man  —  did  not, 
in  fact,  dare  to  run  for  an  elective  office  —  was  "  gen 
erally  beaten  in  his  own  State,"  and,  therefore,  was 
popularly  supposed  to  be  willing  to  make  an  attack 
upon  the  elective  system. 

The  country  was  at  white  heat.  The  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  Resolutions,  as  State  protests,  were  flung 
into  the  ring.  The  repetition  in  them  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  an  admonitory, 
if  not  an  ominous  sound. 

That  Hamilton  contemplated  the  use  of  force  is 
inferrible  at  least  from  his  letter  of  advice  to  his 


176      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

followers  in  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  the  Con 
gressional  session  of  1798-1799.  Read  this:  "Our 
military  force  should  be  kept  upon  its  actual  footing; 
making  provision  for  a  reinlistment  of  men  for  five  years, 
in  the  event  of  a  settlement  of  differences  with  France. 
.  .  .  The  laws  respecting  volunteer  companies  and  the 
eventual  army  should  be  rendered  permanent,  and  the 
Executive  should  proceed  without  delay  to  organize 
the  latter.'7 

His  scheme  went  still  further.  He  advised  legis 
lation,  or  amendments,  whereby  the  large  states  should 
be  subdivided  by  Congress  into  two  or  more  states 
each.  This  was  aimed  at  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  — 
both  democratic  and  strategically  situated  to  oppose 
an  armed  administration  at  Washington. 

This  is  significant  and  is  a  tribute  to  Hamilton's 
foresightedness,  in  view  of  what  afterwards  occurred, 
because  it  looked,  for  a  little  while,  after  Jefferson's 
election  by  the  people,  as  if  unconstitutional  methods 
might  be  adopted  to  seat  a  Federalist  and  to  keep  either 
him  or  Burr  from  being  seated.  The  Governors  of 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania,  therefore,  began  to  mobilize 
their  armed  forces  with  the  view  of  protecting  a  con 
vention  of  the  States  to  be  called,  in  such  an  event,  by 
the  President  and  the  Vice-President  elect,  as  proposed 
by  Jefferson,  and  of  enforcing  whatever  measure  of 
settlement  of  the  issue  it  might  decree. 

If  Hamilton's  scheme  of  having  Congress  subdivide 
the  large  States  could  have  been  acted  upon,  the  two 
great  middle  states  might  have  been  rendered  harm 
less  to  the  Federalist  party  and  helpless  for  the 
defence  of  popular  liberty  and  the  enforcement  of  the 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     177 

right  of  election.  Again,  if  Hamilton's  standing  army 
in  times  of  peace  (for  he  advises  its  organization  "in 
the  event  of  a  settlement  of  differences  with  France") 
could  have  been  put  on  its  feet,  the  Federalists  could 
have  defeated  the  will  of  the  people  by  force,  notwith 
standing  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania. 

Here  is  another  excerpt  from  his  letter  of  advice  to 
the  Federalists,  as  if  alien  and  sedition  laws  had  not 
maddened  the  people  enough:  — 

"Fourth.  Laws  for  restraining  and  punishing  incendiary  and 
seditious  practices.  It  will  be  useful  to  declare  that  all  such  writings, 
etc.,  which  at  common  law  are  libels,  if  levelled  against  any  officer 
whatsoever  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  cognizable  in  the  courts  of  the 
United  States.  To  preserve  confidence  in  the  officers  of  the  General 
Government,  by  preserving  their  reputations  from  malicious  and 
unfounded  slanders,  is  essential,  to  enable  them  to  fulfill  the  ends  of 
their  appointment.  It  is,  therefore,  both  constitutional  and  politic 
to  place  their  reputations  under  the  guardianship  of  the  courts  of  the 
United  States.  They  ought  not  to  be  left  to  the  cold  and  reluctant 
protection  of  State  courts,  always  temporizing,  and  sometimes  dis 
affected." 

Nothing  has  ever  been  equal,  perhaps,  to  what  this 
last  scheme  would  have  resulted  in,  except  what  took 
place  in  the  South  during  the  very  worst  period  of 
reconstruction.  Then  the  manner  in  which  he  finds 
constitutional  warrant  for  it!  Broad  implication  with 
a  vengeance!  The  major  premise  is  that  an  officer 
of  the  United  States  cannot  properly  attend  to  his 
duties  unless  confidence  in  him  is  preserved;  whether 
he  deserves  it  or  not !  The  understood  minor  is  obvious. 
The  conclusion  is:  "therefore,  it  is  constitutional  to 
make  the  common  law  crime  of  libel,  when  United  States 

13 


178      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

officials  are  alleged  to  be  libelled,  jurisdictionable  in 
the  federal  courts!" 

Underlying  all  of  this  is  the  idea  that  it  is  dangerous 
to  the  social  structure  for  common  folks  to  talk  about 
public  officials! 

I  said  above,  "  whether  he  deserves  it  or  not,"  because 
what  are  these  " common  law  libels"  which  were  to  be 
"  judged  in  the  federal  courts,"  when  the  plaintiff  was 
a  United  States  official?  Turn  to  your  Blackstone  and 
read  as  follows:  "It  is  immaterial,  with  respect  to  the 
essence  of  a  libel,  whether  the  matter  of  it  be  true  or  false, 
since  the  provocation  (to  a  breach  of  the  peace)  and 
not  the  falsity,  is  the  thing  to  be  punished  criminally." 
So  that,  therefore,  anything,  true  or  false,  which  brought 
into  contempt  or  ridicule  (by  printing  or  writing  or 
exposing)  any  civil  or  military  official  of  the  United 
States,  would  have  been  cognizable  in  a  federal  court. 
A  political  administration,  which  Hamilton  was  fond  of 
calling  "the  government,"  would  have  had  some  eighty- 
odd  judges,  which  Hamilton  proposed  in  this  same 
paper,  to  create  ("at  the  rate  of  four  for  Connecticut"), 
and,  in  addition  to  them,  "federal  justices  of  the  peace 
in  each  county"  of  the  United  States,  to  hunt  down  and 
inform  against  "  libellers  "  of  the  government.  More 
over,  these  justices  of  the  peace  would  have  been  non- 
salaried  officers,  who  would  have  made  their  living  by 
their  fees! 

One  of  the  grounds  upon  which  Hamilton  places  his 
recommendation  of  this  enormous  increase  of  the 
Federal  judiciary,  is  that  it  would  bring  with  it  "salu 
tary  patronage."  It  is  curious,  too,  that  in  this  same 
paper,  one  reason  that  he  gives  for  recommending  open- 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    179 

ing  canals  and  improving  waterways  is,  that  "it  will  be 
a  useful  source  of  influence  for  the  government." 
Hamilton,  of  course,  did  not  regard  these  purposes  as 
corrupt  and  corrupting,  but  it  is  at  least  natural  that 
Jeffersonians  did. 

Judges,  "at  the  rate  of  four  to  Connecticut,"  with 
incidental  marshals  and  clerks  "on  the  side,"  and 
United  States  justices  of  the  peace  at  the  rate  of  one  to 
a  county,  would  have  been  abundant,  if  not  "salutary" 
patronage,  and  a  wide-spread  if  not  "useful"  "source 
of  influence"  for  the  Federalist  "government." 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  people  thought  that  the 
Federalists  were  looking  to  two  things,  to  wit:  The 
judiciary  and  the  army,  as  vehicles  for  the  overthrow 
of  popular  liberty? 

Hamilton  suggests  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Gunn  of 
December  22,  1798,  fifty  thousand  men  as  the  right 
size  of  the  army.  Fifty  thousand  then  would  mean 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  now,  preserving  the 
ratio  to  population.  The  people  outside  the  army 
would  have  been  as  nearly  helpless  then  in  the  defence 
of  their  rights  and  liberties  against  fifty  thousand 
trained  soldiers,  as  now  they  would  be  against  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 

In  a  letter  to  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  dated  January  26, 
1799,  he  says  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  a  law  em 
powering  the  President,  if  the  negotiations  with 
France  should  not  "terminate  in  peace  by  the  first  of 
the  succeeding  August,"  to  "declare  that  a  state  of 
war  existed"  between  the  two  countries,  so  that  he 
could  use  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United 
States  in  the  "most  effectual  way  for  annoying  the 


180      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

enemy,"  and  then  he  suggests  this  language  for  the 
Act:  "for  preventing  and  frustrating  hostile  designs  of 
France,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  through  any  of  her 
allies."  Spain  was  then  the  helpless  "ally"  of  France 
—  chained  behind  Napoleon's  triumphal  car. 

Here  is  a  request  that  Congress,  abdicating  the 
power  to  declare  war,  should  empower  the  President  to 
"declare  that  a  state  of  war  existed,"  not  because  a 
state  of  war  did  actually  exist,  but,  as  a  fiction  of  the 
law!  Thus  anxious  was  he  for  war  and  an  army  to  go 
with  it. 

Fisher  Ames,  a  Federalist  leader,  in  a  reply  to  a 
letter,  in  Gibb's  "Memoirs,"  Volume  2,  page  313, 
says :  — 

".  .  .  Though  you  justly  remark,  it  [meaning  an  army]  is  no 
engine  of  the  Government,  and  the  civil  magistrate  and  the  process 
are  better  ordinary  means  of  self-defence,  yet  I  hesitate  to  admit 
that,  therefore,  the  army  must  not  be  levied  and  relied  on.  .  .  . 
I  would  have  in  preparation  the  force  to  decide  the  issue  in  favor  of 
Government." 

Again  my  reader  will  notice  this  use  of  the  word 
"Government"  (not  the  government)  when  admin 
istration  is  meant. 

Who  can  say  that  if  we  had  had  war,  with  such  a 
spirit  behind  it  and  such  leaders  in  control  of  it,  the 
American  people  would  have  "come  out  of  it"  "as  free 
as  they  were  before"  it  occurred?  Jefferson  feared  not 
and  expressed  his  fear.  Truly  one  of  the  greatest 
services  John  Adams  ever  performed  for  his  country 
was  taking  the  bit  in  his  teeth,  while  he  ran  away  to  the 
Peace  Goal. 

Now  mark  this  next  and  desperate  move  of  the 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     181 

Counter-Revolutionists.  The  result  of  the  election  in 
New  York  had  demonstrated  that  Jefferson  was  to 
receive  its  electoral  vote.  On  May  7,  1800,  Hamilton 
wrote  an  ever  memorable  letter  to  Jay,  then  Gov 
ernor  of  N.  Y.,  in  which  he  proposed  —  notwithstand 
ing  the  Republican  majority  in  the  State  Legislature, 
the  members  whereof  had  just  been  elected  distinctly 
and  by  previous  agreement,  to  choose  the  electors  of 
the  State  —  to  defeat  the  will  of  the  people  by  a  scheme, 
which  he  proceeded  to  unfold.  It  was  for  the  hold 
over  Federalist  Legislature  to  reverse  its  former  action 
and  to  have  the  people  vote  once  more  —  this  time 
by  districts.  But  let  us  quote  a  part  of  his  own 
language:  — 

"The  calling  of  the  Legislature  will  have  for  its  object  the 
choosing  of  electors  by  the  people  in  districts;  this  (as  Pennsylvania 
will  do  nothing)  will  ensure  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  United  States 
for  a  Federal  candidate.  The  measure  will  not  fail  to  be  approved 
by  all  the  Federal  party;  while  it  will,  no  doubt,  be  condemned  by 
the  opposite.  As  to  its  intrinsic  nature,  it  is  justified  by  unequivocal 
reasons  of  public  safety. 

"The  reasonable  part  of  the  world  will,  I  believe,  approve  it. 
They  will  see  it  as  a  proceeding  out  of  the  common  course,  but 
warranted  by  the  particular  nature  of  the  crisis,  and  the  great  cause 
of  social  order." 

Here  is  Hamilton's  everlasting  "crisis"  recurring 
again,  and  here  is  the  reason  given,  since  the  world 
began,  by  monarchs  and  aristocrats,  for  opposing 
republicanism  and  refusing  to  abide  by  the  result  of 
elections,  to  wit:  the  maintenance  of  "the  cause  of 
social  order." 

Read  this  letter.  It  has  been  spoken  of  as  "remark 
able  and  extraordinary."  It  is  not.  It  is  but  a  normal 


182      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

outcropping  of  a  political  system  and  an  anti-demo 
cratic  creed,  in  which  Hamilton  was  thoroughly 
sincere. 

Honest  old  John  Jay  —  amongst  whose  papers  after 
his  death  this  letter  was  found  by  his  son  and  biog 
rapher  —  had  endorsed  upon  the  back  of  it,  in  his  own 
handwriting,  these  words:  " Proposing  a  measure  for 
party  purposes  which  I  think  it  would  not  become  me  to 
adopt." 

Hamilton's  scheme  in  New  York,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  scheme  to  which  he  refers  to  throw  out  the 
vote  of  Pennsylvania,  by  not  permitting  either  its 
people  or  its  Legislature  to  vote  for  Presidential  electors 
—  a  scheme  to  be  accomplished  by  a  hold-over  Feder 
alist  State  Senate  refusing  to  act  at  all  —  would  have 
destroyed  all  possibility  of  Jefferson's  election,  and 
were  both  desperate  measures.  If  they  had  been 
carried  out,  the  chances  are  that  the  American  union 
would  have  been  dismembered.  At  any  rate,  civil 
war  must  have  ensued.  The  South  and  West  and  the 
people  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  would  hardly 
have  submitted  peaceably  to  this  nullification  of 
Pennsylvania's  and  this  partial  reversal  of  New  York's 
vote.  If  the  Union  had  been  preserved,  it  would  have 
been  preserved  at  the  end  of  a  war,  and  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  if  the  Federalists  had  won, 
would  have  come  out  of  that  war  no  longer  a  govern 
ment  of  delegated  powers,  but  a  Hamiltonian  strong 
government  of  assertedly  inherent  powers,  whatever 
its  form.  I  do  not  doubt  that  Hamilton,  thinking 
himself  quite  a  military  character,  felt  assured  of 
Federalist  victory.  In  his  very  boyhood  he  had  hoped 


DEMOCRATIZED  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     183 

for  a  war,  so  that  he  " might  gain  distinction"  and  at 
every  opportunity  of  his  life,  he  displayed  absolute 
confidence  in  his  military  genius. 

About  four  years  after  this  time,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
Hamilton's  truest  friend,  who  knew  him  better  than 
anybody,  in  a  letter  to  Aaron  Ogden,  dated  December 
28,  1804,  speaking  of  Hamilton,  said:  — 

"He  knew  that  his  favorite  form  [of  government]  was  inad 
missible,  unless  as  the  result  of  civil  war;  and  I  suspect  that  his  belief 
in  that,  which  he  called  his  approaching  crisis,  arose  from  a  con 
viction  that  the  kind  of  government  most  suitable  in  his  opinion 
to  this  extensive  country,  could  be  established  in  no  other  way." 

The  language  is  that  of  the  cool,  cynical,  penetrating, 
observant  friend  of  Hamilton,  the  man  selected  by  his 
family  to  pronounce  his  eulogy,  and  whose  opinions,  as 
a  rule,  ran  parallel  with  Hamilton's. 

But  Jefferson's  great  task  seems  done.  At  least  the 
people  vote  to  endorse  him  and  his  gospel:  "Back  to  the 
principles  of  the  American  Revolution."  But  the  great 
task  only  seems  finished.  The  Counter-Revolutionists 
had  had  their  Leipzig.  They  insisted  upon  meeting  their 
Waterloo.  True  Jefferson  had  been  elected,  and  there 
was  no  complaint  that  it  was  not  by  a  remarkably 
honest  and  fair  vote.  Yet  he,  and,  what  seems  never  to 
have  occurred  to  these  men,  the  people,  might  yet  be 
cheated  or  bullied  out  of  the  fruits  of  their  victory. 
Not  a  Democratic-Republican  in  all  the  land  had  voted 
for  anybody  but  Jefferson  to  be  President.  Not  a  man, 
however  partisan  or  bitter,  pretended  it.  But  again, 
"whom  the  gods  would  ruin,  they  first  make  mad." 
Jefferson  and  Burr  had  received  the  same  number  of 
electoral  votes.  This  left  the  House  to  determine 


184      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

between  them.  It  had  no  other  function.  It  is  to 
Jefferson's  victory  over  those  engaged  in  this  mad 
attempt  to  overthrow  popular  rule  and  "the  voice  of 
the  majority  honestly  expressed,"  that,  next  to  our 
independence  and  the  adoption  of  the  present  Consti 
tution,  with  its  first  ten  amendments,  our  institutions 
owe  most  for  their  permanency  and  stability  and  spirit. 
Had  this  attempt  succeeded,  every  subsequent  Presi 
dential  election  would  have  been  an  invitation  to  civil 
war,  or  a  submission  to  usurpation. 

To  the  spectacle  of  what  occurred  attention  is  now 
invited.  Throughout  all  this,  by  the  way,  Gouverneur 
Morris  seems  to  have  acted  honestly  and  with  a 
gentlemanly  appreciation  of  duty.  What  is  quoted 
below,  he  seems  to  have  abided  by. 

In  a  letter  to  Hamilton,  on  December  19th,  he 
says :  — 

"It  is  supposed  that  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Burr  will  have  equal 
votes,  and  various  speculations  are  made  and  making  on  that 
subject.  At  first  it  was  proposed  to  prevent  any  election,  and  thereby 
throw  the  Government  into  the  hands  of  a  President  of  the  Senate.  It 
even  went  so  far  as  to  cast  about  for  the  person.  This  appeared 
to  me  a  wild  measure,  and  I  endeavored  to  dissuade  those  gentlemen 
from  it,  who  mentioned  it  to  me.  The  object  of  many  is  to  take 
Mr.  Burr,  and  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  that  measure  were 
adopted.  Not  meaning  to  enter  into  intrigues,  I  have  merely 
expressed  the  opinion,  that  since  it  was  evidently  the  intention  of 
our  fellow-citizens  to  make  Mr.  Jefferson  their  President,  it  seems 
proper  to  fulfill  that  intention." 

None  of  the  other  Federalist  leaders,  except  Huger  of 
South  Carolina,  seemed  to  be  impressed  with  that  plain 
homely  truth.  The  Secretary  of  State,  John  Marshall, 
wrote  to  Hamilton  on  January  1st  that  he  "had  not 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    185 

determined"  to  which  of  the  two,  Jefferson  or  Burr, 
" preference  was  due,"  but  that  he  "  could  not  bring 
himself  to  aid  Mr.  Jefferson!" 

Rutledge  of  South  Carolina,  a  man  of  extraordinarily 
high  honor  in  ordinary  affairs,  wrote:  " Should  Mr. 
Jefferson  be  disposed  to  make  (as  he  would  term  it) 
an  improvement  (and  as  we  should  deem  it  a  sub 
version)  of  our  Constitution,  the  attempt  would  be 
fatal  to  us."  Now  mark  the  conclusion,  which  shows 
the  character  of  "  sub  version  of  our  Constitution"  to 
which  Rutledge  was  referring:  "For  he  [i.  e.,  Jefferson] 
would  begin  by  democratizing  the  people,  and  end 
with  throwing  everything  into  their  hands!"  (Italics 
and  exclamation  are  both  mine.)  This  was  such  an 
enormous  iniquity  that  even  an  honest  gentleman  like 
Rutledge  wanted  it  prevented  by  defeating  the  known 
will  of  the  people!  It  shows  that  when  once  the 
poisonous  germ  of  aristocratic  arrogance  gets  into  a 
man's  head,  it  destroys  all  vestiges  of  a  moral  code  in 
affairs  of  State. 

Fortunately  for  our  institutions  and  peace,  Alex 
ander  Hamilton  feared  and  hated  Burr,  more  than  he 
hated  Jefferson. 

But  while  trying  to  persuade  all  his  Federalist  friends 
—  and  really  persuading  not  one  —  to  vote  for  Jefferson 
as  against  Burr,  he  did  it  on  the  ground  that  Burr 
was  "a  Catiline,"  and  all  that.  He  exhibited  neither 
any  motive  higher  than  one  of  personal  choice,  nor  the 
slightest  indication  of  a  consciousness  of  the  binding 
obligation  on  the  citizen  to  obey  the  will  of  the  nation 
honestly  expressed  in  a  democratic  republic. 

Neither   then  nor   afterwards   did  he  betray   any 


186      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

regret,  or  any  consciousness  of  wrong  concerning  what 
he  had  connived  at  in  Pennsylvania,  and  attempted 
to  persuade  John  Jay  and  the  Federalist  Legisla 
ture  to  do  in  New  York.  He  never  once  took  the 
position  taken  even  by  cynical  Gouverneur  Morris,  and 
much  less  that  taken  by  Huger  of  South  Carolina  — 
who  lived  and  died  a  Federalist,  but  a  republican  — 
to  wit:  —  in  Huger's  words  —  that  "the  people  had 
elected"  Jefferson,  and  that  "it  was  for  them  to  elect 
a  President,  and  not  for  me,"  and  that,  therefore,  he 
would  vote  to  seat  him,  over  Burr  —  the  only  consti 
tutional  choice  left  him  being  between  these  two. 

The  Federalists  had  their  choice  between  three 
things,  either  to  elect  Burr,  or  confirm  the  people's 
election  of  Jefferson,  or  to  continue  the  deadlock,  and 
thereby  leave  the  Government  without  executive  head. 
In  the  last  event,  the  plan  was  for  the  Federalist 
Congress  to  usurp  the  authority  of  "reorganizing  the 
Government"  by  passing  a  law  vesting  the  chief 
magistracy  in  some  man  of  its  choice  —  John  Marshall, 
Secretary  of  State,  being  apparently  the  favorite, 
though  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  the  President 
pro  tempore  of  the  Senate,  all  three  Federalists,  were 
mentioned. 

Jefferson  very  quietly,  but  resolutely,  denied  the  right 
of  Congress  to  "reorganize  the  government,"  or  "any 
part  of  it";  said  that  no  authority  existed  for  the 
purpose  "save  in  the  people  themselves,"  and  that 
"they  might  authorize  a  convention  to  reorganize  and 
even  amend  the  machine."  This  suggestion  of  a  con 
vention  was  an  insuperable  checkmate  to  the  Counter- 
Revolutionists. 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    187 

His  constant  reply  to  everybody  who  approached 
him  was  that  "  there  were  ten  individuals  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  any  one  of  whom  by  changing  his 
vote"  could  not  only  relieve  the  deadlock,  but  do  the 
will  of  the  people.  He  said,  that  if  the  House  of 
Representatives  should  elect  Burr,  he  and  his  party 
would  submit.  It  had  a  technically  constitutional  right 
to  do  that,  although  in  doing  it  its  members  would 
commit  substantial  treason  against  the  known  will  of 
the  American  people.  But  if  they  undertook  to  pass  a 
law,  to  use  his  language,  "for  putting  the  government 
into  the  hands  of  an  officer,"  that  would  be  clearly  a 
usurpation  to  which  Americans  could  not  submit, 
and  would  call  for  a  different  and  more  virile  treatment. 
So,  at  his  suggestion,  he  and  all  his  friends  "declared 
openly,"  that  "the  day  such  an  act  passed,  the  Middle 
States  [meaning  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania]  would 
arm,"  and  "no  such  usurpation,  even  for  a  single  day, 
should  be  submitted  to." 

"This  first  shook  them,"  and  then  they  were  com 
pletely  alarmed  at  "the  ultimate  resort"  for  which 
Jefferson  declared,  to  wit:  "A  convention  to  reorganize 
the  government  and  to  amend  the  Constitution."  Of 
course,  the  convention  once  sitting  would  have  un 
limited  powers,  subject  to  State  ratifications.  All  that 
was  necessary  was  to  protect  it  in  its  deliberations. 
Jefferson  said  that  "the  very  word  convention  gave 
them  the  horrors,  as  in  the  present  democratical  spirit 
of  America,  they  fear  they  should  lose  some  of  the 
favorite  morsels  of  the  Constitution."  This  declaration 
and  this  "ultimate  resort"  is  what  really  called  a  first 
halt  upon  the  Federalist  conspiracy  to  remain  in  power 


188      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

despite  the  election.  Then  they  tried  to  get  Jefferson 
to  make  terms.  But  here  too  they  failed.  In  a  letter 
to  Monroe,  of  February  15th,  he  says:  "I  have  declared 
to  them  unequivocally  that  I  would  not  receive  the 
government  on  capitulations,  and  that  I  would  not  go 
into  it  with  my  hands  tied." 

They  had  pursued  the  usual  course  of  enemies  of 
democracy  and  of  popular  liberty;  they  had  first 
contemplated  a  clear  usurpation,  and  —  that  being 
balked  —  they  had  then  attempted  to  prevail  upon  the 
choice  of  the  people,  in  return  for  office  and  emolument, 
to  prove  traitor  to  his  constituency  by  becoming  the 
condition-bound  servant  of  the  self-asserted  better 
element. 

They  thus  found  themselves  confined  to  the  election 
of  Burr,  hoping  from  his  gratitude  a  betrayal  of  his 
constituents. 

Even  to  do  this  they  must  make  a  break  in  the 
Democratic-Republican  phalanx  in  the  House.  The 
House,  when  voting  by  States,  was  a  tie. 

Jefferson's  policy  throughout  was  not  only  wise  and 
bold,  but  it  was  assured,  unless  some  of  his  own  party 
deserted  him  for  Burr.  The  Federalists  had  not  suc 
ceeded  in  organizing  their  army.  John  Adams's  "fool 
peace"  had  balked  that.  The  people  were  no  longer 
afraid.  Two  great  strong  States  —  Virginia  and  Penn 
sylvania,  strategically  situated  —  had  as  executives 
two  quietly-determined  men,  Monroe  and  McKean, 
who  were  mobilizing  the  State  forces  in  order  to  protect 
the  convention,  which,  if  need  were,  would  be  called 
by  the  President-elect,  and  to  which  every  Republican 
State,  and  the  Republican  voters  in  the  other  States, 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    189 

would  at  once  send  delegates,  with  such  consequence  of 
a  thorough  democratization  of  the  government  as  might 
follow.  At  every  point  of  the  game  Jefferson  had  the 
counter-revolutionists  checkmated. 

In  a  letter  to  James  Madison,  dated  February  18, 
1801,  he  says:  "The  minority  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  after  seeing  the  impossibility  of  electing 
Burr,  the  certainty  that  a  legislative  usurpation  would 
be  resisted  by  arms,  and  recourse  had  to  a  convention 
to  reorganize  and  amend  the  Constitution,"  were  at 
their  wit's  ends.  Things  were  brought  to  an  end  for 
them  when  "Morris,  of  Vermont,  withdrew,  which 
made  Lyon's  vote  that  of  his  State."  This  was 
Matthew  Lyon,  the  Jeffersonian,  who  had  served  a  jail 
sentence  under  the  Sedition  Law. 

This  Morris  was  a  relative  —  nephew,  I  believe  —  of 
Gouverneur  Morris,  to  some  extent  under  the  influence 
of  the  latter,  and  probably  in  this  particular  act  actu 
ally  influenced  by  him.  All  the  subsequent  attempts  of 
Bayard,  of  Delaware,  to  take  the  credit  to  himself  of 
what  occurred,  and  then  to  tarnish  that  credit  by 
claiming  that  his  act  of  withholding  Delaware's  vote 
had  been  conditioned  upon  certain  promises  made  by 
Jefferson,  through  Smith  of  Maryland,  all  of  which  was 
denied  point  blank  by  Smith;  all  the  claims  of  Hamil 
ton's  friends,  that  he  ought  to  have  the  credit,  are 
equally  baseless.  Bayard  quit  only  when  the  spectre 
of  a  convention  frightened  him  into  a  semi-paralyzed 
halt.  Hamilton  did  want  Jefferson  to  beat  Burr,  and 
in  so  far  as  that  is  creditable  to  him,  he  deserves 
credit. 

The  only  other  Federalist,  besides  Robert  Morris  and 


190      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Gouverneur  Morris,  that  deserves  any  credit,  was  Huger 
of  South  Carolina,  to  whose  utterance  I  have  already 
referred.  At  this  stage  Huger  made  an  agreement  with 
his  colleagues  from  South  Carolina,  that  they  would 
all  withdraw,  and  permit  the  delegation  to  vote  a 
blank;  but  it  must  be  remembered,  that  even  if  Huger's 
colleagues  had  not  agreed  to  that,  Morris's  withdrawal, 
leaving  Lyon  to  cast  the  Vermont  vote  for  Jefferson, 
settled  the  election. 

Meanwhile,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Federalists  had 
not  sympathized,  as  a  body,  with  this  action  of  their 
leaders.  Some  of  them  felt  humiliated;  some  angry; 
many  of  them  went  over  bodily  to  the  Republican  party, 
and  Jefferson  properly  said:  "This  conduct  of  the  mi 
nority  has  done  in  one  week  what  very  probably  could 
hardly  have  been  effected  by  years  of  mild  and  im 
partial  administration." 

The  full  measure  of  the  success  which  Jefferson  had 
wrought  can  be  appreciated,  when  one  contemplates 
this  contemptible  scene  in  which  the  reactionary 
leaders  had  acted  their  respective  roles,  and  then 
remembers,  that  there  has  never  been  another  day  to 
dawn  in  America,  when  any  lot  of  politicians  any 
where —  however  talented,  rich  or  respectable  — 
would  have  dared  to  attempt  to  reenact  it.  No  party 
will  ever  attempt  again  to  set  aside  the  undisputed 
result  of  an  honest  election  by  the  people.  Such  an 
X-ray  did  this  pitiable  spectacle  shed  upon  the  nature 
and  tendencies  of  the  counter-revolution,  that  two- 
thirds  of  both  Houses  and  three-fourths  of  the  States, 
as  soon  as  the  machinery  provided  by  the  Constitution 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    191 

could  move,  enacted  an  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution,  that  it  might  never  be  repeated. 

This  amendment  constitutes  one  of  the  permanent 
gains  for  American  institutions,  which  may  properly  be 
credited  to  Jefferson's  cool  and  unwavering  constancy, 
and  to  the  inspiration  it  gave  to  that  superb,  unbroken 
and  unbreakable  phalanx  of  his  followers  in  the  House, 
who  asserted  the  elementary  doctrine:  "Let  the  will  of 
the  people,  honestly  and  constitutionally  expressed, 
be  done."  This  elementary  creed  of  republics,  no 
single  Federalist  leader  —  except  one  Morris  at  the 
last,  and  another  Morris  and  Huger,  from  the  begin 
ning  —  seemed  so  much  as  to  scent. 

Bayard,  of  Delaware,  who  may  be  said  to  be  the  man, 
who  historically  sang  the  Federalist  swan  song,  in  a 
letter  to  Alexander  Hamilton,  dated  March  8,  1801, 
which  may  be  found  in  Hamilton's  "Works,"  Volume 
6,  page  524,  says:  "The  means  existed  of  electing  Burr, 
but  this  required  his  cooperation.  By  deceiving  one 
man,  a  great  blockhead,  and  by  tempting  two,  not 
incorruptible,  he  might  have  secured  a  majority  of  the 
States."  Bayard  adds  an  expression  of  his  indignation 
and  disgust  in  these  words:  "He  [Burr]  will  never  have 
another  chance  of  being  President  of  the  United  States; 
and  the  little  use,  which  he  has  made  of  the  one  which 
has  occurred,  gives  me  but  an  humble  opinion  of  the 
talents  of  an  unprincipled  man."  Nothing  better 
shows  the  spirit  of  the  anti-Democracy.  That  Burr 
was  an  unprincipled  man,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  but 
if  it  be  true  that  he  refused  to  "deceive  one  man"  and 
to  corrupt  two  others,  then  there  stands  in  history  at 
least  something  to  his  credit!  Now,  there  was  no  man 


192      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  higher  character,  more  respectable  talent,  greater 
personal  probity  in  private  life  than  James  Bayard  of 
Delaware ;  yet  he  uttered  the  words  quoted.  They  were 
the  natural  outcropping  of  a  political  system,  the 
keystones  of  whose  structure  were  contempt  for  the 
"  common  herd,"  and  the  divine  right  of  the  self- 
assumed  "  better  element "  to  rule.  For  this  world  has 
been  plagued  not  only  with  the  doctrine  of  the  "  divine 
right  of  kings/'  but  with  this  lesser,  and  later,  doctrine, 
based  upon  a  still  more  insidious  assumption.  A  little 
thing  like  deceiving  a  blockhead  and  buying  two 
corrupt  politicians  ought  not  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  rule  of  the  wise  and  good!  If  given  the  creed,  the 
conduct  follows. 

Professor  Tucker,  in  his  "Life  of  Jefferson,"  to  show 
how  far  this  awful  doctrine  could  carry  its  wicked 
influence,  says:  " General  Lee,  of  Virginia,  it  was  said, 
was  earnest  in  advising  this  desperate  measure"  (that 
is,  putting  the  Secretary  of  State  in  as  President). 
This  Lee  was  "Light  Horse  Harry"  of  "the  Legion," 
a  brave  soldier  and  a  gentleman,  with  generations  of 
gentlemen's  blood  in  his  veins!  Gouverneur  Morris, 
in  a  contemporaneous  letter,  says:  "Desperate  meas 
ures  were  contemplated,"  and  describes  what  the 
desperate  measures  were  —  substantially  what  Bayard 
said  they  were. 

Jefferson  owed  no  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  Federalist 
leaders,  and  the  war  between  him  and  them  must  go 
on;  but  he  felt  quite  differently  towards  the  rank  and 
file  of  that  party  —  the  misled,  and  not  the  mis- 
leaders.  They  had  never  been  consciously  and  pre- 
meditatedly  monocratic.  From  the  very  first  hour 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS    193 

of  his  administration  the  administration  was  fair  and 
even  generous  to  them,  and  every  possible  means  of 
reconciling  them  to  republican  rule  was  used.  This 
spirit  was  fully  disclosed  in  his  inaugural  address. 

This  inaugural  address  has  had  a  permanent  and 
abiding  influence  upon  the  political  thought  and  the 
spirit  of  the  institutions  of  the  American  people.  It 
has  been  from  the  day  it  was  spoken  down  to  now  a 
"Sermon  on  the  Mount/7  not  alone  for  those  who  call 
themselves  Democratic,  with  a  big  "D,"  but  for  all 
men  with  democratic  hearts  and  purposes.  He  empha 
sizes  as  "the  vital  principle  of  republics,  from  which 
there  is  no  appeal  save  to  force  "  —  the  vital  principle 
of  despotisms  —  "an  absolute  acquiescence  in  the 
decisions  of  the  majority  honestly  expressed. "  He 
does  not  once  mention  the  House  of  Representatives, 
nor,  except  in  this  indirect  way,  criticize  it.  If  the 
reader  has  not  read  this  address,  I  request  him  to  read 
it  at  once;  if  he  has  read  it,  let  him  read  it  over  again. 

However  hypocritical  the  pretense  upon  the  lips  of 
politicians  may  often  be,  no  man  has,  since  1808, 
hoped  to  be  taken  as  thoroughly  American,  unless  he 
professed  faith,  in  the  long  run,  in  the  common  sense 
of  the  people,  and  their  "essential  rectitude  of  purpose," 
a  faith  which  was  expressed  by  Lincoln  later  in  the 
phrase,  "You  can  fool  some  of  the  people  all  the  time 
and  all  of  the  people  some  of  the  time,  but  you  cannot 
fool  all  the  people  all  the  time;'7  a  faith,  which  was 
much  better  expressed  by  Jefferson  in  the  words,  "Error 
is  not  to  be  feared,  if  reason  be  left  free  to  combat  it." 

But  even  with  the  result,  the  counter-revolutionary 
scheming  did  not  cease.  In  answer  to  a  letter  in  which 

14 


194      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Hamilton  had  raised  the  question  of  the  Republican 
repeal  of  the  Federal  judiciary  act  —  through  whose 
new  and  numerous  judges  the  Federalists  had  hoped 
still  to  unshape  our  institutions  —  Bayard  warned  him 
that  he,  Bayard,  had  "had  an  opportunity  of  learning 
the  opinions  of  the  Chief  Justice,"  and  that  the  latter 
"considered  the  late  repealing  act  as  operative  in  de 
priving  the  judges  of  all  power  derived  under  the  act 
repealed."  By  the  way,  this  sheds  a  side-light  on  some 
things.  Here  was  Bayard,  practically  the  Senate 
leader  of  the  Federalists,  getting  an  "off-the-bench" 
opinion  from  John  Marshall,  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States,  in  advance  of  the  presentation  of  a  case  before 
the  court,  and  while  the  public  generally  would  remain 
in  ignorance  of  the  position,  which  the  court  would 
take.  I  remember  the  fine  indignation  of  a  gentleman, 
whom  I  once  knew,  the  judge  of  a  Mississippi  circuit 
court,  when  a  lawyer  came  to  him  off  the  bench  to  get 
his  opinion  concerning  the  unadjudicated  constitution 
ality  of  a  State  statute. 

Hamilton's  outline  of  a  so-called  "Christian  Con 
stitutional  Society,"  though  it  "died  aborning"  under 
Bayard's  discouragement,  and  probably  the  discourage 
ment  of  others — practical  men — was  the  last  desperate 
dying  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  American  Counter- 
Revolution.  With  it  ends  the  last  readable  page  of  this 
"Suppressed  Chapter  of  our  History."  Read  it;  it 
is  worth  reading.  It  is  such  a  curious  anachronism  to 
have  been  written  in  America,  for  Americans. 

While  apparently  intending  to  criticize  Jefferson, 
Curtis,  in  the  following  words,  pays  him  the  highest 
possible  tribute:  — 


DEMOCRATIZER  OF  FEDERAL  INSTITUTIONS     195 

"Jefferson  intended  that  the  new  nation  should  be  a  democracy, 
and  he  would  rather  have  let  the  whole  world  perish  than  that  this 
purpose  should  fail.  Nevertheless,  he  was  the  most  absolute 
monarch  that  ever  sat  in  the  Presidential  chair.  Although  he 
introduced  the  practice  of  discussing  all  matters  in  his  Cabinet  and 
deciding  the  questions  of  importance  by  vote,  his  powerful  indi 
viduality  and  persuasive  reasoning  controlled  his  advisers  in  that 
official  family,  and  in  Congress.  He  exercised  an  influence  in  both 
Houses  of  the  National  Legislature  and  with  the  people  that  has 
never  been  equalled  by  any  of  his  predecessors.  He  formed  a 
powerful  party,  he  directed  its  action,  and  he  selected  its  principles, 
but  he  never  assumed  the  attitude  of  a  'boss/" 

In  connection  with  this  statement  that  "  Jefferson  led 
his  party,"  as  thoroughly  as  "an  absolute  monarch/' 
it  may  well  be  remarked  that  America  has  never 
suffered  from  too  much  political  leadership.  We  have 
not  had  enough  of  it.  True,  we  have  had  too  much 
unofficial,  unelected,  irresponsible  leadership,  or  too 
many  "bosses."  But  a  man  selected  to  lead  and 
leading  by  convincing  others  that  he  is  right,  by  appeals 
to  the  popular  heart  and  head,  has  no  followers  except 
volunteers,  and,  they  even,  not  "for  the  war,"  but  only 
during  his  "  good  behavior."  The  reason  why  a  genuine 
democracy,  oftener  than  a  party  not  founded  on  its 
principles,  follows  a  leader,  is  because  it  is  only  the 
head  of  a  party  with  that  faith,  that  dares  or  can  appeal 
frankly  to  the  common-sense  and  common-conscience 
of  the  masses.  How  can  a  multitude  follow  him,  who 
does  not  trust  them,  nor,  at  heart,  recognize  their 
reason  and  rectitude  of  purpose,  and  not  recognizing 
them,  can  therefore  not  sympathetically  appeal  to  them? 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON  AS  PRESIDENT 
1.    "MY  PASSION  is  PEACE" 

THROUGHOUT  Jefferson's  whole  administration,  the 
chief  thing  in  his  view  was  the  democratization  of  the 
Federal  Government.  For  this,  a  frugal,  pimple 
government,  and  peace,  were  absolutely  necessary. 
This  accounts  to  a  large  extent  for  his  peace-at-almost- 
any-price  policy. 

In  a  letter  to  Noah  Worcester  (Massachusetts  col 
lection),  he  says:  - 

"Of  my  disposition  to  maintain  peace  until  its  condition  shall 
be  less  tolerable  than  war  itself,  the  world  has  had  proofs,  and  more, 
perhaps,  than  it  has  approved ; ...  if  by  the  inculcations  of  reason 
or  religion,  the  perversities  of  our  nature  can  be  so  far  corrected, 
as  sometimes  to  prevent  the  necessity,  real  or  supposed,  of  an  appeal 
to  the  blinder  scourge  of  war,  devastation  and  murder,  the  be 
nevolent  endeavor  of  friends  of  peace  will  not  be  entirely  unre- 
munerated." 

If  deeds,  or  lack  of  deeds,  flowing  from  such  a  creed 
be  error,  it  is  humanizing  error,  requiring  more  reso 
lution  and  courage,  than  it  required  a  hundred  years 
after  the  time,  for  a  citizen  of  a  compact,  wealthy  and 
strong  country,  of  nearly  one  hundred  millions  of 
inhabitants,  unassailable  by  any  foreign  influence  to 
call  it  "  infamous  conduct." 

If  infamous,  Washington's  administration  was  "in- 

196 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  197 

famous"  for  the  same  reason,  and  that  of  Adams  only 
a  little  less  so. 

Washington  submitted  to  the  humiliation  of  recom 
mending  and  signing  the  Jay  Treaty.  It  required 
courage  to  do  it. 

If  our  early  history,  while  the  government  was 
a-forming,  had  been  either  one  of  war  and  victory  and 
conquest,  or  one  of  war  and  defeat  and  desolation 
and  debt,  a  beginner  can  spell  out  for  us  a  fate  totally 
different  from  that  which  we  have  enjoyed. 

Washington  and  Jefferson  were  great,  but  greater  in 
nothing  than  in  not  permitting  "the  Maniacal  War 
Fury  of  Europe"  to  spread  its  contagion  to  America. 
Washington,  perhaps,  deserves  the  more  credit  of  the 
two,  because  he  first  set  the  pace.  However  that  may 
be,  there  is  "  glory  enough  to  go  round,"  as  Schley 
said,  and  Washington's  preeminence  consists  in  this, 
that  without  his  great  name,  neither  Jefferson  as  his 
Secretary  of  State,  nor  any  other  man,  amidst  all  the 
then  provocations  to  popular  passion,  could  have 
started  us  off  right,  as  "The  Great  Peace  Nation  of 
the  Earth." 

Few  have  better  expressed  our  special  reasons  and 
our  peculiar  opportunity  to  set  an  example  of  peace  to 
all  the  world,  than  Jefferson :  — 

"Separated  by  a  wide  ocean  from  the  nations  of  Europe,  and 
from  the  political  interests,  which  entangle  them  together,  with 
productions  and  wants  which  render  our  commerce  and  friendship 
useful  to  them  and  theirs  to  us,  it  cannot  be  the  interest  of  any  to 
assail  us,  nor  ours  to  disturb  them.  We  should  be  most  unwise, 
indeed,  were  we  to  cast  away  the  singular  blessings  of  the  position 
in  which  nature  has  placed  us,  the  opportunity  she  has  endowed 
us  with  of  pursuing,  at  a  distance  from  foreign  contentions,  the 


198      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

paths  of  industry,  peace  and  happiness;  of  cultivating  general 
friendship,  and  of  bringing  collisions  of  interest  to  the  umpirage  of 
reason  rather  than  of  force." 

I  like  those  last  words,  which  I  have  italicized. 
In  one  of  his  messages  these  words  —  so  much  too 
wise  for  Jingoes  to  comprehend  —  occur:  — 

"Our  duty,  therefore,  is  to  act  upon  things  as  they  are,  and  to 
make  a  reasonable  provision  for  whatever  they  may  be.  Were 
armies  to  be  raised  whenever  a  speck  of  war  is  visible  in  our  horizon, 
we  should  never  have  been  without  them.  Our  resources  would 
have  been  exhausted  on  dangers,  which  would  never  have  happenedf 
instead  of  being  reserved  for  what  is  really  to  take  place." 

It  is  popular  to  talk  about  our  being  "an  unready 
nation,"  and  about  how  much  is  added  to  the  cost  of 
war  in  life  and  treasure  by  the  fact  that  we  are  never 
prepared  for  it;  but  those  who  talk  thus  forget  the 
other  side  of  the  shield.  If  we  are  to  be  kept  always 
prepared  for  war,  then  we  are  never  prepared  for  the 
utmost  possibilities  of  peace,  and  it  is  far  better  to 
strain  our  backs  to  an  extra  burden,  now  and  then,  when 
war  is  unavoidable,  than  it  is  to  keep  them  burdened 
all  the  time.  Every  dollar  which  goes  into  war  prep 
aration  goes  out  of  peace  progress;  it  is  subtracted 
from  public  roads,  popular  education,  internal  improve 
ments,  good  churches,  clothes  or  food  for  the  people  — 
subtracted  somewhere  from  industry  or  improvement. 
The  real  truth  is,  the  constant  drain  pre-decreases  our 
strength  either  for  offensive  or  defensive  war  when  it 
comes. 

Besides;  being  "always  ready"  is  an  ever-present 
temptation  to  make  war  wantonly.  A  nation  thus 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  199 

"fixed"  is  like  a  man  with  a  pistol  —  he  wants  to  use 
it,  to  see  if  it  is  not  rusty. 

Jefferson  in  one  of  his  letters,  says:  "I  frankly 
confess  that  my  passion  is  peace."  And  in  another 
place  he  voices  this  utterance,  by  way  of  a  sublime 
paraphrase:  "Let  all  the  world  pray  to  Heaven  that  at 
length  there  may  be  on  earth  peace  and  good  will 
toward  men." 

In  connection  with  the  designation  by  Mr.  Theodore 
Roosevelt  of  the  conduct  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  in 
"not  preparing  for  war,"  as  "infamous  conduct," 
Mr.  Tom  E.  Watson  is  very  happy.  What  he  says  is 
worth  reading  from  every  standpoint,  and  can  be  found 
on  pages  445  and  446  of  his  "Life  of  Jefferson." 

Anent  the  Leopard-Chesapeake  incident,  Jefferson 
wrote:  — 

"I  had  only  to  open  my  hands  and  let  havoc  loose.  ...  If 
ever  I  was  gratified  with  the  possession  of  power  and  of  the  confi 
dence  of  those  who  intrusted  me  with  it,  it  was  on  that  occasion, 
when  I  was  enabled  to  use  both  for  the  prevention  of  war,  toward 
which  the  torrent  of  passion  was  directed  almost  irresistibly,  and 
when  not  another  person  in  the  United  States,  less  supported  by 
authority  and  popular  favor,  could  have  resisted  it." 

I  think  the  best  judgment  will  be  that  the  early 
Presidents  acted  wisely  hi  their  "Peace-at-almost-any- 
Price"  policy,  in  their  avoidance  of  war  till,  like  Topsy, 
we  were  "growed  up"  a  little.  It  would  not  be  many 
years  before  instead  of  accepting  terms  from  others,  we 
could  impose  them.  So  convinced  was  Jefferson  of 
this  that  he  was  wary  of  all  such  treaties  and  agree 
ments  as  were  practically  to  be  hoped  for  in  his  day. 

This  sound  reasoning  and  sentiment  occur  in  a  letter 


200      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

to  his  son-in-law,  Jack  Eppes,  dated  September  27, 
1811:- 

"I  am  so  far,  in  that  case,  from  believing  that  our  reputation 
will  be  tarnished  by  our  not  having  mixed  in  the  mad  contests  of 
the  rest  of  the  world,  that,  setting  aside  the  ravings  of  pepper-pot 
politicians,  of  whom  there  are  enough  in  every  age  and  country,  I 
believe  it  will  place  us  high  in  the  scale  of  wisdom  to  have  pre 
served  our  country  tranquil  and  prosperous  during  a  contest  which 
prostrated  the  honor,  power,  independence,  laws,  and  property  of 
every  country  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Which  of  them 
have  better  preserved  their  honor?  Has  Spain,  has  Portugal, 
Italy,  Switzerland,  Holland,  Prussia,  Austria,  the  other  German 
powers,  Sweden,  Denmark,  or  even  Russia?  And  would  we  accept 
the  infamy  of  France  or  England  in  exchange  for  our  honest  repu 
tation,  or  the  result  of  their  enormities  —  despotism  to  the  one, 
and  bankruptcy  and  prostration  to  the  other  —  in  exchange  for 
the  prosperity,  the  freedom,  and  independence  which  we  have 
preserved  safely  through  the  wreck?" 

There  was  ever  present  for  Jefferson,  and  there  is 
ever  present  for  the  true  Jeffersonian  since,  a  broad 
vision  of  world  democracy  and  world  peace. 

Henry  Adams  splendidly  says :  — 

"Jefferson  aspired  beyond  the  ambition  of  a  nationality  and 
embraced  in  his  view  the  whole  future  of  man.  ...  He  wished  to 
begin  a  new  era.  Hoping  for  a  time  when  the  world's  ruling  interest 
would  cease  to  be  local  and  should  become  universal  ...  he  set 
himself  to  the  task  of  governing  with  this  golden  age  in  view.  Few 
men  have  dared  to  legislate,  as  though  eternal  peace  were  at  hand, 
in  a  world  torn  by  wars  and  convulsions  and  drowned  in  blood;  but 
this  was  what  Jefferson  aspired  to  do.  ...  As  he  conceived  a  true 
American  policy;  war  was  a  blunder,  an  unnecessary  risk;  and 
even  in  case  of  robbery  and  aggression  the  United  States,  he  be 
lieved,  had  only  to  stand  on  the  defensive  in  order  to  obtain  justice 
in  the  end.  He  would  not  consent  to  build  up  a  new  nationality 
merely  to  create  more  armies  and  navies,  to  perpetuate  the  crimes 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  201 

and  follies  of  Europe.  The  central  Government  at  Washington 
should  not  be  permitted  to  indulge  in  the  miserable  ambitions, 
that  had  made  the  Old  World  a  hell,  and  frustrated  the  hopes  of 
humanity." 

Shall  we  permit  what  Jefferson  would  not?  Is  the 
spirit  of  peace  to  continue  permanently,  as  the  in 
dwelling  soul  of  our  body  politic? 

2.    "AN  EMPIRE  FOR  LIBERTY" 

Jefferson,  the  republican  expansionist,  had  been  all 
his  life  looking  across  the  Blue  Ridge  from  the  planta 
tion  porch  towards  the  Western  country.  During  the 
Revolutionary  war  he  realized  the  value  of  having 
possession  of  it.  A  Treaty  of  Peace  would  be  based 
upon  the  principle  of  uti  possidetis,  and  it  was  for  this 
reason  that  George  Rogers  Clark,  whom  John  Randolph 
of  Roanoke  subsequently  called,  in  his  high-flown  style, 
the  "  Hannibal  of  the  West,"  was  sent  to  take  possession 
of  the  northwestern  country.  Sufficient  attention  has 
never  been  paid  by  historians  to  the  effect  of  the 
success  of  this  movement  upon  the  subsequent  extent 
of  our  national  domain. 

When  Jefferson  was  Secretary  of  State  in  1790,  it 
looked  at  one  time  as  if  Great  Britain  were  about  to 
seize  New  Orleans.  Jefferson  advised  President  Wash 
ington  then,  that  the  United  States  ought  to  go  to  war 
to  prevent  it.  In  the  same  year  he  gave  a  warning  to 
France  upon  the  same  subject  through  the  American 
Minister  at  Paris,  saying  that  such  an  act  would  be 
regarded  as  unfriendly  to  the  United  States,  and,  in  the 
long  run,  "not  beneficial  to  France."  Remember  this 
was  as  early  as  1790. 


202      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Let  us  take  up  the  story  of  Louisiana. 

The  information  came  to  America  of  the  cession  of 
Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  by  Spain  to  France.  In  so 
far  as  the  Floridas  were  concerned  it  was  error,  but  if 
the  reader  will  keep  in  his  mind  the  fact  that  the  news 
came  that  way  it  will  unravel  some  tangles.  At  once, 
Mr.  Jefferson  wrote  to  Mr.  Livingston,  our  Minister 
at  Paris,  a  letter  dated  April  18, 1802,  which  was  strong 
and  uncompromising. 

In  connection  with  the  effort  that  has  been  made  in 
some  quarters  to  give  an  over-share  of  the  credit  of  the 
purchase  of  Louisiana  to  Livingston,  Mr.  Morse  is, 
at  any  rate,  not  deluded.  He  says  in  his  "Life  of 
Jefferson":  — 

"Jefferson  put  on  foot  the  movement  for  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana.  .  .  .  But  that  minister  [meaning  Livingston],  before 
he  had  learned  the  executive  purpose,  had  unfortunately  expressed 
very  different  views  of  his  own.  He  had  told  the  French  govern 
ment  that  the  United  States  cared  not  at  all  whether  their  neighbor 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  was  to  be  France  or  Spain,  provided 
the  right  of  navigation  and  privileges  of  deposit  should  not  be 
interfered  with.  After  correction,  indeed,  he  began  to  discuss  a 
purchase,  and  in  time  would  probably  have  concluded  it;  but 
Jefferson,  for  many  reasons,  chose  to  send  a  special  emissary." 

Even  later  Livingston  wrote  to  Madison  these 
words :  — 

"I  would  rather  have  confined  our  views  to  smaller  objects, 
and  I  think  that  if  we  succeed,  it  would  be  good  policy  to  exchange 
the  west  bank  [of  the  Mississippi]  with  Spain  for  the  Floridas, 
reserving  New  Orleans." 

To  this  proposition  Jefferson  expressed  his  opposition, 
shrewdly  believing  that  we  would  obtain  Florida  any- 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  203 

how,  when  the  fruit  was  ripe;  that  is,  whenever  Spain  in 
volved  in  war  would  want  or  need  to  sell;  and  that  the 
thing  of  chief  value  to  us  was  the  free  and  exclusive 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  which  could  not  well 
consist  with  the  possession  by  any  power  of  territories 
upon  its  western  bank,  or  even  upon  its  western 
tributaries. 

As  late  as  the  afternoon  of  April  11,  1803,  Talleyrand 
astounded  Livingston  with  these  words:  "Does  the 
United  States  wish  the  whole  of  Louisiana?"  Livings 
ton  replied:  "No;  we  only  want  New  Orleans  and  the 
Floridas."  That  evening  Monroe  arrived  in  Paris. 
He  came  with  verbal  instructions  from  the  President, 
and  the  pathway  for  American  negotiators  was 
simplified. 

Jefferson  had  said:  — 

"The  day  that  France  takes  possession  of  New  Orleans  fixes  the 
sentence  which  is  to  restrain  her  forever  within  her  low  water 
mark.  It  seals  the  union  of  two  nations,  who  in  conjunction  can 
maintain  exclusive  possession  of  the  ocean.  From  that  moment 
we  must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation.  .  .  .  The 
first  cannon,  which  shall  be  fired  in  Europe,  [will  be]  the  signal  for 
tearing  up  any  settlement  she  may  have  made,  and  for  holding 
the  two  continents  of  America  in  sequestration  for  the  common 
purposes  of  the  united  British  and  American  nations." 

Professor  Hart  in  his  "Making  the  American 
Nation, "  says:  — 

"Never  m  all  his  long  and  varied  career  did  Jefferson's  fox-like 
discretion  stand  him  in  better  stead.  Instead  of  following  the 
public  clamor,  he  calmly  formulated  a  policy  and  carried  it  through 
to  a  most  successful  termination. 

"The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  quiet  the  public  mind;  the  second 
was  to  regain  the  right  of  deposit;  the  third  was  to  steer  a  tortuous 


204      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

course  between  France  and  England  and  to  take  advantage  of 
every  possible  opening  to  secure  possession  of  New  Orleans  and 
the  Gulf  coast,  and  in  this  way  to  put  an  end  forever  to  all  chances 
of  similar  trouble  in  the  future." 

If  it  had  been  anybody  but  Jefferson  the  adjective 
above  would  have  been  "wise,"  not  "tortuous." 

In  the  preface  of  a  little  book  entitled  "The  Louisiana 
Purchase,"  by  Winship  and  Wallace,  I  find  this  lan 
guage:— 

"Little  did  either  France  or  the  United  States  dream,  on  that 
eventful  last  day  of  April,  1803,  of  all  that  lay  in  the  sale  by  the 
one  and  the  purchase  by  the  other  of  the  vast  and  unknown  ter 
ritory  called  Louisiana." 

If  by  that  is  meant  that  not  many  people  in  France, 
or  in  the  United  States  dreamt  all  that  it  meant  for  the 
future,  the  statement  is,  of  course,  a  truism.  That  is 
true,  at  the  time  of  its  happening,  of  almost  any  great 
transaction;  but  if  it  is  meant  that  the  men  possessing 
the  great  guiding  minds  on  both  sides,  Jefferson  and 
Napoleon,  did  not  fully  realize  why  they  did  what  they 
did,  and  what  it  all  meant  then  and  for  the  future,  it 
is  a  great  mistake. 

Napoleon  knew  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  go 
to  war  with  England  again;  that,  if  he  did,  the  chances 
of  his  being  able  to  retain  Louisiana  were  one  in  ten; 
that  even  if  the  United  States  did  not  stir  a  foot,  Great 
Britain,  if  earnestly  intent  upon  it,  could  capture  New 
Orleans  and  hold  it,  and  that  holding  New  Orleans  and 
the  mouths  of  the  river,  she  would  control  the  interior, 
at  least  as  against  France.  But  he  knew  more  than 
that,  for  Jefferson  had  told  him  so,  that  the  United 
States,  in  the  event  of  his  keeping  Louisiana,  must 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  205 

"marry  themselves,"  to  use  Mr.  Jefferson's  language  in 
the  negotiations,  "to  the  British  fleet  and  nation."  He 
knew  that  Jefferson  was  only  waiting,  until  the  war 
broke  out,  for  the  co-operation  of  a  British  fleet,  to 
turn  loose  the  land-hungry  and  warlike  frontiersmen  of 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  the  Mississippi  Territory  to 
seize  the  French  possessions  all  the  way  down  the  river, 
including  New  Orleans. 

That  Jefferson  fully  understood  the  importance  of 
the  entire  matter  is  indicated  by  his  language:  — 

"Every  eye  in  the  United  States  is  now  fixed  on  the  affairs  of 
Louisiana.  Perhaps  nothing  since  the  Revolutionary  War  has 
produced  more  uneasy  sensations  through  the  body  of  the  nation." 

And  this:  — 

"The  cession  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  by  Spain  to  France 
works  most  sorely  on  the  United  States.  .  .  .  It  completely  reverses 
all  the  political  relations  of  the  United  States,  and  will  form  a  new 
epoch  in  our  political  course.  .  .  .  There  is  on  the  globe  one  single 
spot,  the  possessor  of  which  is  our  natural  and  habitual  enemy. 
It  is  New  Orleans,  through  which  the  produce  of  three-eighths  of 
our  territory  must  pass  to  market,  which  from  its  fertility  will  ere 
long  yield  more  than  half  of  our  whole  produce,  and  contain  more 
than  half  of  our  inhabitants. 

"France,  placing  herself  in  that  door,  assumes  to  us  the  attitude 
of  defiance.  Spain  might  have  retained  it  quietly  for  years.  Her 
pacific  dispositions,  her  feeble  state,  would  induce  her  to  increase 
our  facilities  there,  so  that  her  possession  of  the  place  would  be 
hardly  felt  by  us.  And  it  would  not  be  very  long,  perhaps,  when 
some  circumstance  might  arise  which  might  make  the  cession  of  it 
to  us  the  price  of  something  of  more  worth  to  her. 

"Not  so  can  it  ever  be  in  the  hands  of  France;  the  impetuosity 
of  her  temper,  the  energy  and  restlessness  of  her  character,  placed 
in  a  point  of  eternal  friction  with  us,  and  our  character,  which  is  as 
high-minded,  enterprising  and  energetic  as  that  of  any  nation  on 


206      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

earth,  .  .  .  render  it  impossible  that  France  and  the  United  States 
can  long  continue  friends,  when  they  meet  in  so  irritable  a  position. 
They,  as  well  as  we,  must  be  blind  if  they  do  not  see  this;  and  we 
must  be  very  improvident  if  we  do  not  begin  to  make  arrangements 
on  that  hypothesis." 

As  far  as  this  particular  great  transaction  was  con 
cerned,  there  were  simply  two  parties  to  it:  one, 
Napoleon  the  Great,  and  the  other,  Jefferson,  the 
Seer  —  the  see-er. 

When  the  treaty  was  signed  Napoleon  said:  "A  few 
lines  of  a  treaty  restored  to  me  the  Province  of  Louisiana 
and  repaired  the  fault  of  the  French  negotiator,  who 
abandoned  it  in  1763.  But  scarce  have  I  recovered  it 
when  I  must  lose  it  again."  (Italics  are  always  mine.) 

It  was  a  case  of  "must,"  and  Napoleon  knew  it.  He 
realized  fully  what  he  was  parting  with.  He  also  saw 
that,  by  its  cession,  he  not  only  prevented  a  present 
alliance  between  these  two  English-speaking  countries, 
but  that  he  dealt  a  blow,  which  would,  in  the  long  run, 
possibly  count  very  much  against  his  arch  enemy, 
England. 

The  only  reason  why  his  prophecy  about  "our 
humbling  Britain's  pride  on  the  ocean"  has  not  come 
to  pass  is  that  we  have  grown  to  be  such  a  stupendous 
people  in  resources  and  reserved  power,  that  nobody 
wishes  to  challenge  us  to  a  contest.  If  there  were 
the  slightest  need,  we  would  be  in  command  of  the  seas. 

Jefferson  began  to  buy  Louisiana  without  consulting 
Congress.  Well  does  Mr.  Bryce,  in  his  "American 
Commonwealth,"  say:  "This  was  the  boldest  step  that 
a  President  of  the  United  States  has  ever  yet  taken." 

The  committee  report,  which  recommended  the  legis 
lation  appropriating  $2,000,000  declared  that  it  was 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  207 

"to  enable  the  executive  to  commence  with  more 
effect  a  negotiation  with  the  French  and  Spanish 
Governments  relative  to  the  purchase  from  them  of  the 
Island  of  Orleans  and  of  East  and  West  Florida." 
Remember  that  it  was  at  that  time  thought  in  America 
that  New  Orleans  and  East  and  West  Florida  were  the 
lands  ceded  by  Spain  to  France. 

Upon  the  question  how  far  Jeffersoji  had  in  con 
templation  the  possibility  of  securing  all  of  the  Louisi 
ana  territory,  there  have  been  many  words  written. 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  minimum  of  his  desire, 
without  which  an  English  alliance  and  war  must  be  our 
recourse,  was  the  city  and  island  of  Orleans,  to  which 
he  would  have  preferred  these  plus  East  and  West 
Florida,  but  that  he  would  have  preferred  above  all  else 
the  purchase  of  everything,  which  Spain  had  ceded  to 
France,  of  the  exact  extent  of  which  he  was  then  ignorant. 
Further,  to  sum  it  up,  it  appears  that  Monroe  was  sent 
with  only  verbal  instructions  to  join  Livingston,  ex 
pressly  in  order  that  the  American  negotiators  might  be 
prepared  for  any  contingency,  which  might  present 
itself. 

Few  men  were  quicker  to  take  a  hint  of  any  descrip 
tion  than  Napoleon  the  Great.  No  man  ever  lived 
who  saw  the  end  of  a  military,  or  naval,  situation  in 
advance,  as  completely  as  he.  A  man  with  a  very  much 
smaller  military  insight  could  have  foreseen  that  while 
England  remained  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  and  the 
United  States  of  America  remained  the  mistress  of  their 
own  land  and,  except  for  England,  of  their  local  waters, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  land  a  single  soldier  at 


208      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  river,  or,  if  landed,  after 
wards  to  withdraw  him. 

It  has  been  frequently  said  that  Napoleon  "by  one 
of  his  sudden  impulses,  changed  his  whole  policy," 
and  concluded  to  sell  Louisiana.  Lucien  Bonaparte,  in 
his  half-serious,  half-humorous,  description  of  the  con 
versation,  which  he  and  Joseph  had  with  Napoleon, 
while  the  latter  was  hi  the  bath  tub,  has  spread  this 
notion  over  the  world. 

Napoleon  never  acted  by  "sudden  impulses."  He 
sometimes  pretended  to  do  it.  You  may  depend  upon 
it  that  he  traveled  in  thought  all  over  this  Louisiana 
question  and  found  himself  in  a  cul  de  sac,  with  no  way 
out,  except  either  the  surrender  of  Louisiana  in  war,  or 
its  sale  in  peace.  The  only  way  he  could  have  kept 
Louisiana  was  to  have  kept  the  peace.  This  he  either 
could  not  do,  or  desired  not  to  do.  Hence,  the  moment 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  renew  war  with  England,  he 
wanted  to  sell  Louisiana  before  he  declared  war  and 
before  his  enemy  could  declare  it.  He  even  antedated 
the  treaty.  If  he  could  sell  it  and  get  the  money  in  his 
pocket,  then  he  could  leave  England  to  do  what  she 
pleased  —  either  acquiesce,  or  take  on  a  new  enemy. 

No  great  judge,  or  lawyer,  nor  any  of  Jefferson's 
friends,  agreed  with  him  in  his  doubt  of  the  Consti 
tutional  right  to  acquire  territory  by  treaty.  Indeed, 
the  sole  contention  even  of  the  Federalists,  in  their 
subsequent  effort  to  embarrass  the  administration  was 
that  Congress  had  no  power  to  acquire  territory  "to  be 
formed  into  States  of  the  Union." 

The  threats  of  dissolution  of  the  Union  made  by  the 
New  Englanders  were  not  based  so  much  upon  the 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  209 

ground  of  the  acquisition  of  the  territory,  as  on  the 
declared  intention  of  carving  it  up  into  States  to  be 
admitted  to  the  Union,  as  a  part  of  the  governing  power 
of  the  United  States.  The  third  article  of  the  treaty  of 
cession  contained  this  language:  — 

"The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territory  shall  be  incorporated 
into  the  union  of  the  United  States  and  admitted,  as  soon  as  possible, 
according  to  the  principles  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  to  the  en 
joyment  of  all  the  rights,  advantages  and  immunities  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States." 

It  was  when  that  part  of  the  Louisiana  Territory, 
which  we  now  call  the  State  of  Louisiana,  knocked  at 
the  doors  of  Congress  for  admission  as  a  State  and  nine 
years  after  the  purchase,  that  Josiah  Quincy  made  that 
noted  speech,  in  which  he  said:  — 

"I  am  compelled  to  declare  it  as  my  deliberate  opinion,  that  if 
this  bill  passes,  the  bonds  of  this  Union  are  virtually  dissolved; 
that  the  states,  which  compose  it,  are  free  from  their  moral  obliga 
tions;  and  that  as  it  will  be  the  right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty 
of  some  to  prepare  definitely  for  a  separation;  amicably,  if  they  can; 
violently,  if  they  must." 

It  is  rather  curious,  and  a  good  deal  of  an  impeach 
ment  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  usual  clearness  of  thought,  that 
he  should  have  permitted  the  character  of  our  Govern 
ment  with  regard  to  domestic  affairs  and  its  character 
with  regard  to  foreign  affairs  to  become  mixed  in  his 
mind.  The  States  delegated  to  the  general  Government 
all  the  power  they  ever  possessed  with  regard  to  foreign  af 
fairs,  consequently  reserved  none.  All  "the  powers  not 
delegated"  to  the  Federal  Government  "are  reserved 
to  the  States,  and  to  the  people,"  but  with  regard  to 
our  relationship  to  foreign  governments  all  power 
15 


210      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

having  been  delegated  and,  hence,  none  reserved,  the 
Federal  Government  has  every  power,  except  such  as 
may  be  expressly  prohibited  to  it  by  the  Constitution, 
or,  ex  necessitate  rei,  forbidden  by  our  dual  system  of 
government.  In  other  words,  the  Federal  Government 
cannot,  under  the  pretext  of  international  relations, 
legislate  by  treaty  upon  State  domestic  affairs.  For 
example,  it  can  not  by  treaty  dictate  to  the  people  of 
California  the  character,  or  management,  of  their  public 
school  system  —  not  because  the  Federal  Government 
has  not  every  power  with  regard  to  international  and 
foreign  affairs,  but  because  this  is  not  an  international, 
nor  a  foreign  affair. 

Gallatin,  Madison  and  all  Jefferson's  friends  took  the 
position  that,  with  regard  to  foreign  relations,  the 
States  were  preeminently  one;  that  the  power  of  ac 
quiring  territory  as  a  result  of  war,  or  as  a  means  of 
settling  international  disputes  had  to  reside  somewhere; 
that  as  the  States  had  delegated  all  power  with  regard 
to  international  relations,  it  must  reside  in  the  Federal 
Government;  that,  in  conferring  the  treaty-making 
power,  the  fact  that  it  had  been  conferred  without  any 
limitation  prohibiting  the  acquisition  of  territory,  was 
itself  eloquent  in  behalf  of  their  contention;  that, 
although  the  treaty-making  power  could  not  amend, 
nor  alter  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  nor 
change  our  dual  system  of  State  and  Federal  Govern 
ments,  nor  deprive  any  citizen  of  his  protection  under 
the  constitutional  bill  of  rights,  nor  do  any  other  thing 
forbidden  by  the  Constitution,  it  was  yet  unlimited,  in 
the  sense,  that  anything,  not  prohibited  to  the  whole 
Federal  Government,  nor  expressly  and  exclusively 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  211 

vested  in  some  other  branch  of  it,  could  be  done  by  it 
under  the  treaty-making  power.  Not  only  had  the 
States  expressly  delegated  all  the  treaty-making  power 
to  the  Federal  Government,  but  that  there  might  be  no 
doubt  about  the  fact  that  it  was  a  complete  and  ex 
clusive  delegation  of  a  full  power,  without  residuum, 
they,  in  another  clause  of  the  Constitution,  expressly 
prohibited  to  themselves  all  power  to  enter  into  leagues, 
or  treaties. 

The  position,  however,  which  was  taken  by  Madison, 
Gallatin  and  others,  is  totally  different  from  that  taken 
by  a  later  administration  with  regard  to  the  Philippines 
and  Porto  Rico.  It  was  never  contemplated  by  any 
of  the  men  of  that  party,  which  added  two-thirds  of 
our  domain  to  the  Union,  that  any  part  of  it,  after 
acquisition,  could  be  indefinitely  governed  hi  abso 
lutism,  as  conquered  territory.  True,  it  was  contended, 
that  in  " a  period  of  transition"  between  the  moment  of 
the  " cession"  and  the  moment  of  the  " incorporation, 
according  to  the  principles  of  our  Constitution,"  the 
territory  must  be  governed  by  Congress;  and  that  in  the 
interval  between  the  cession  and  the  date  at  which  even 
a  territorial  government  could  be  set  on  its  feet,  some 
government,  de  facto,  must  exist. 

This  mistake  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  is  all  the  more  peculiar 
because  it  stands  in  its  class  alone.  In  every  other 
respect,  he  seems  to  have  appreciated  fully,  that,  with 
regard  to  foreign  affairs,  the  United  States  Government 
had  plenary  power,  except  in  so  far  as  Constitutional 
prohibitions  and  the  very  nature  of  our  dual  government 
constituted  a  limitation.  In  one  sense,  of  course,  no 
government,  under  the  American  theory,  has  absolutely 


212      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

plenary  power,  not  even  a  State  government  —  even 
over  matters  of  internal  police.  All  American  govern 
ments  are  limited  by  express  prohibitions  in  State  or 
Federal  Constitutions.  The  Federal  Government  in 
regard  to  foreign  relations  is  thus  limited;  but  not  by 
the  operation  of  the  reservation  clause.  The  limitations 
on  it,  with  regard  to  foreign  affairs,  are  like  the  limita 
tion  upon  State  governments,  with  regard  to  domestic 
affairs.  Mr.  Jefferson  himself,  in  another  place,  said, 
that  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Government  were  divided 
into  two  classes,  foreign  and  domestic,  and  used  this 
language:  "The  States  are  independent  as  to  everything 
within  themselves,  and  united  as  to  everything  respecting 
foreign  nations"  Long  prior  to  that,  he  had  written 
from  Paris,  when  we  were  about  to  form  the  new 
Constitution,  that  this  was  the  principle  upon  which  it 
should  be  framed. 

The  recent  Porto  Rican  and  Philippine  cases  are  not 
to  be  reconciled  either  with  previous  decisions,  with  one 
another,  or  with  themselves.  The  De  Lima  case 
partially  announces  the  old  and  theretofore  accepted 
doctrine;  the  Downes  case  crawls  out  from  under  it. 

The  Supreme  Court,  in  the  case  of  Cross  vs.  Harrison 
decided  that,  after  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  of 
Guadaloupe  Hidalgo,  California  became  a  part  of  the 
United  States,  and  a  bare  majority  of  the  Court  recently 
in  the  Downes  case  decided  that,  after  the  ratification 
of  another  treaty,  Porto  Rico  did  not  become  a  part  of 
the  United  States!  The  Court  in  the  former  case 
said  that  California  "became  instantly  bound  and 
privileged  by  the  laws  which  Congress  had  passed  to 
raise  a  revenue  from  imports  and  tonnage  " 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  213 

Justice  Brown  in  the  latter  case  declared  that  neither 
the  Constitution  nor  the  revenue  laws  extended  over  the 
island  ex  proprio  vigore,  and  not  until  Congress  said  so;  in 
other  words,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
—  the  fundamental  voice  of  the  people  —  prescribed 
and  announced  to  control  all  functionaries  created  by  it 
and  subject  to  change  only  in  the  way  designated  in  the 
body  of  it  —  is  an  overcoat,  to  be  put  on,  or  removed, 
by  Congress  to  suit  the  weather  at  Washington. 

The  idea  in  the  Chief  Justice's  mind  seems  to  be, 
that  the  old  overcoat  is  not  big  enough,  or  otherwise 
does  not  fit,  and  that  if  the  attempt  is  made  to  cover 
with  it  not  only  "  contiguous  territory,"  but  "  distant 
possessions,"  there  is  great  danger  of  splitting  it! 
Quite  true,  too. 

I  am  old-fashioned  enough,  however,  or,  as  I  would 
rather  express  it,  have  laic  common  sense  enough,  to 
believe  that,  if  it  is  found  that  we  cannot  govern  certain 
" distant  possessions,"  with  " alien  populations"  in 
accordance  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
(subject  to  which  every  possible  functionary  of  the 
Federal  Government  everywhere  must  act),  that  one 
of  three  things  ought  to  follow:  either  —  warned  by 
the  fact  —  we  ought  not  to  annex  them,  or,  having 
annexed  them,  we  ought,  under  just  and  safe  provision, 
to  let  them  go,  or  else  an  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution  giving  the  powers  necessary,  in  the  cases  desig 
nated,  should  be  asked.  Queer  idea  this,  that  "the 
court  should  make  concessions!" 

Justice  Harlan,  in  his  dissenting  opinion,  rises  to  the 
height  of  eloquent  statesmanship.  He  announces  that 
every  branch  of  the  Federal  Government  is  "tethered 


214      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

by  the  Constitution,"  and  that  this  is  a  government, 
which  has  no  power,  either  at  home  or  abroad,  in  the 
Territories,  or  in  the  States,  or  in  " appurtenances"  or 
"  appendages,"  or  anywhere  else,  "  except  such  power 
as  is  derived  from  the  Constitution,"  and  that  "  inter 
national  law  has  not  been  so  incorporated  into  our  insti 
tutions,"  as  that  "an  agreement  with  a  foreign  nation 
can  change,  alter,  or  amend  the  Constitution." 

I  haven't  time  to  go  into  all  this,  but  I  wish  the 
student  would  read  the  second  chapter  of  Sidney 
Webster's  little  book,  "The  Two  Treaties  of  Paris," 
where  the  whole  thing  is  set  forth  in  its  miraculous 
incomprehensibility,  and  its  full  enormity. 

Upon  this  question  it  is  well  to  quote  in  this  con 
nection  an  excerpt  from  a  letter  written  by  Gouverneur 
Morris  on  December  4,  1803.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  he  was  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Style  in 
the  Constitutional  Convention,  and,  therefore,  the 
formal  draftsman  of  the  Constitution:  — 

"I  always  thought  that  when  we  should  acquire  Canada  and 
Louisiana,  it  would  be  proper  to  govern  them  as  provinces  and  allow 
them  no  voice  in  our  councils.  In  wording  the  third  section  of 
the  fourth  article  I  went  as  far  as  circumstances  would  permit  me 
to  establish  the  exclusion.  Candor  obliges  me  to  add  my  belief, 
that,  had  it  been  more  pointedly  expressed,  a  strong  opposition 
would  have  been  made." 

This  note  shows  that  in  Morris's  opinion  there  was  no 
doubt  of  the  contemplation  by  the  framers  of  the  Con 
stitution,  at  the  very  time  of  its  adoption,  of  possible 
acquisition  of  foreign  territory;  Canada  and  even 
Louisiana,  being  in  remote  contemplation.  It  shows, 
moreover,  that  he  himself,  although  in  favor  of  govern- 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  215 

ing  such  territory  merely  "as  provinces,"  was  afraid 
to  let  this  latter  idea  be  known  to  the  Constitutional 
Convention.  In  fact,  under  the  Continental  Congress, 
previous  to  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  present 
Constitution,  and  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  the  Ameri 
can  people  had  in  view  the  possibility  that  at  some 
time  the  British  American  Provinces  might  want  to  be 
admitted  into  the  Union.  The  hope  has  only  recently 
disappeared  since  the  British  Canadian  Provinces  have 
developed  into  a  great,  prosperous,  free  and  self- 
governing  dominion,  and  have  become  perfectly  recon 
ciled,  under  their  substantial  autonomy,  to  the  nominal 
rule  of  the  mother  country. 

Professor  Hart  says  that,  "  Diplomatically,  Jefferson, 
Livingston  and  Madison  had  achieved  nothing;  Louisi 
ana  had  been  thrown  into  their  hands  through  no  efforts 
of  theirs."  This  is  not  a  just  thing  to  have  written.  It 
is  true,  they  first  thought  all  we  could  get  was  the  city 
and  so-called  island  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
and,  perhaps,  West  Florida,  and  began  negotiating  for 
that.  But,  if  we  could  have  purchased  nothing  but 
the  Island  of  Orleans,  including  the  City  of  New 
Orleans,  still  the  upper  part  of  the  Louisiana  Territory 
must  necessarily  have  fallen  into  our  hands.  The 
French  would  have  had  no  way  of  getting  to  it,  or 
defending  it,  from  the  south  except  by  our  permission, 
or  from  the  north  except  by  England's  permission. 
Talleyrand  was  right,  when  he  said  to  Livingston  that 
"  without  New  Orleans,  Louisiana  itself  would  be  of  no 
use  to  France." 

By  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  these  great  aims  were 
attained:  The  exclusive  navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 


216      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

making  it  the  great  commercial  artery  of  the  country 
and  an  unshackled  outlet  for  our  produce;  a  vast 
territory,  fitted  by  soil  and  climate  for  home-making  for 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Republic,  became  their 
heritage;  potentially,  and,  in  fact,  almost  immediately 
there  accrued  a  large  increase  of  the  annual  revenues; 
it  effected  the  removal  of  possible  enemies  from  im 
mediate  contiguity,  minimizing  the  occasions  for  wars; 
it  gave  a  guarantee  of  an  extension  of  field  for  the 
development  of  American  institutions,  individual  free 
dom,  and  democratic  laws.  As  Jefferson  expressed  it, 
it  gave  us  "a  new  empire  for  liberty,"  which,  "with  our 
old/'  constituted  such  a  domain,  "as  she  had  never 
witnessed." 

Senator  Hoar  said  he  never  thought  of  Jefferson 
without  seeing  him  "with  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  in  one  hand  and  the  Louisiana  treaty  in  the  other." 

Curtis  says:  "It  seems  inexplicable  that  Jefferson 
did  not  include  in  his  epitaph  his  acquisition  of  the 
Louisiana  Territory."  In  this  he  shows  a  complete 
kick  of  comprehension  of  the  character  of  the  man. 
'Nothing  in  the  way  of  mere  material  acquisition  was  to 
a  mind  like  Jefferson's  a  primary,  or  an  eternal  thing. 
To  such  a  mind,  acquisition  of  territory  might  be  a 
means  and  very  valuable,  but  not  an  end.  Men  are 
not  made  free,  or  happy,  because  of  the  area  of  the 
country  in  which  they  live.  Territorial  acquisition  is  a 
secondary  and  not  a  primary  thing  in  the  political  phi 
losophy  of  a  man  like  Jefferson  —  good  only,  if  it 
extend  "an  empire  for  liberty."  The  acquisition  of 
Louisiana  was  not  "the  greatest  benefit  that  Jefferson 
ever  conferred  upon  his  country."  The  Jeffersonian 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  217 

spirit  was.  This  Jeffersonian  spirit  was  permanently 
embodied  in  our  institutions,  simultaneously  with  the 
defeat  of  the  Counter-Revolution. )  • 

Curtis  declares  that  Jefferson  was  not  the  originator 
of  the  project  of  acquiring  Louisiana,  and  says  that  as 
far  back  as  the  Revolution,  the  necessity  of  controlling 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  navigation  had 
become  apparent  to  many  minds.  In  the  same  way, 
he  might  deprive  Lincoln  of  the  credit  of  emancipation, 
because  as  far  back  as  the  Revolution,  and,  indeed, 
prior  to  it,  the  idea  that  the  temple  of  democracy  would 
be  more  symmetrical  and  more  enduring,  if  slavery 
were  abolished,  had  "been  apparent"  to  very  many 
other  minds  also,  to  Jefferson's  among  others.  Christ 
opher  Columbus  was  not  the  first  man  to  dream  of 
lands  to  the  West,  but  he  was  the  first  man  who  "got 
there." 

The  expansion  advocated  and  effected  by  Jefferson 
and  that  advocated  and  effected  by  McKinley  and  the 
negotiators  of  the  second  Treaty  of  Paris  cannot  be 
compared.  They  must,  in  all  respects,  be  contrasted. 

Jefferson  annexed  to  the  American  domain  vast  areas 
of  unpeopled  lands,  contiguous  to  American  territory, 
the  possession  of  which  was  essential  to  American  de 
fence,  and  which  were  fit  for  home-making  by  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  American  Republic. 

McKinley  annexed  distant  possessions,  densely  popu 
lated,  destined  at  no  time  to  become  parts  of  the 
governing  American  people,  and  incapable  of  becoming 
so,  without  poisoning  our  body-politic  by  the  infil 
tration  of  alien  and  unassimilable  blood,  and  requiring 
an  increased  naval  and  military  force  to  hold  them. 


218      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

In  the  treaty  bringing  to  us  the  Louisiana  Territory, 
the  United  States  stipulated  that  the  inhabitants 
should  be  governed  "  according  to  the  principles  of  our 
Constitution,"  and  should,  "as  soon  as  possible/' 
consistently  with  those  principles,  "be  incorporated  into 
the  Union."  Although  the  inhabitants  of  the  ceded 
territory  did  not  become  immediately  a  part  of  the 
governing  United  States,  they  knew  and  were  assured 
from  the  beginning  that  such  was  their  destiny,  and 
they  secured  in  advance,  as  soon  as  territorial  govern 
ment  could  be  organized,  the  full  individual  protection 
of  every  article  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 

On  the  contrary,  the  second  Treaty  of  Paris,  which 
brought  to  us  the  Philippines,  contained  the  language 
that  "the  civil  rights  and  political  status  of  the  native 
inhabitants  of  the  territory  hereby  ceded  to  the  United 
States  should  be  determined  by  Congress."  Instead 
therefore  of  the  inhabitants  obtaining  the  nationality 
of  citizens  of  the  United  States,  they  obtained  that  of 
Porto  Ricans  and  Filipinos. 

When  Congress  passed  its  first  act  for  the  government 
of  Louisiana,  it  is  true  that  it  vested  in  persons  to  be 
appointed  by  the  President  all  powers  of  government, 
but  it  was  with  this  ever-memorable  limitation  upon  the 
character  of  those  powers  and  the  exercise  of  them; 
that  they  were  to  be  exercised  "for  maintaining  and 
protecting  the  inhabitants  of  Louisiana  in  the  free 
enjoyment  of  their  liberty,  property  and  religion." 

Sidney  Webster,  in  his  "Two  Treaties  of  Paris  and 
The  Supreme  Court,"  says:  — 

"Congress  thereby  enacted,  in  effect,  that  the  former  Spanish 
and  French  laws  —  excepting  always,  and  of  course,  those  for- 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  219 

bidden  by  our  Constitution  —  should  be  the  laws  of  the  new  ac 
quisition  till  Congress  make  others.  Jefferson  was  commanded  to 
supervise  the  execution  of  the  enactment." 

Under  the  new  dispensation,  the  Spooner  Amend 
ment  of  March,  1901,  is  very  much  broader.  The 
language  of  it  is:  "All  military,  civil  and  judicial 
powers,  necessary  to  govern  the  Philippines,  shall  be 
vested  in  such  person  and  persons,  to  be  appointed  by 
the  President,  and  to  be  exercised  in  such  manner  as 
the  President  shall  direct."  "It  contains  no  limitations 
at  all  upon  the  governing  powers  of  the  President's 
appointees,  except  his  direction,"  and  no  limitation 
upon  him,  except  that  the  "powers"  shall  "be  necessary 
to  govern  the  Philippines."  The  language  of  the 
enactment  in  Jefferson's  time  might  have  been  repeated. 
It  was  purposely  not  repeated. 

The  cardinal  difference  is  that  the  Spooner  Amend 
ment  did  not  recognize  (in  fact,  those  who  voted  for  it 
denied),  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philippines,  or  of 
Porto  Rico,  received,  by  the  fact  of  their  coming  under 
the  American  flag  and  becoming  subject  to  American 
sovereignty,  any  Constitutional  protection  whatsoever. 
Indeed  the  advocates  of  the  McKinley  species  of 
"dependency"  and  " appurtenancy "  government  were 
much  disturbed  by  the  opinion  long  before  given  by 
John  Marshall  in  the  case  of  Loughborough  vs.  Blake, 
to  the  effect  that  the  phrase  "throughout  the  United 
States,"  "designated  our  great  republic,  composed  of 
States  and  Territories."  The  course  pursued  by  the 
United  States,  with  regard  to  the  Louisiana  Territory, 
under  the  treaty  with  France,  and  that  with  regard  to 
the  Florida  Territory,  under  the  treaty  with  Spain  in 


220      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

1819,  and  that  with  regard  to  the  territory  acquired 
from  Mexico,  as  a  result  of  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo,  were  essentially  the  same,  although  the  lan 
guage  of  the  treaties  differed  somewhat.  But  in  every 
instance  the  intent  and  purpose  and  promise  —  the 
only  purpose  consistent  with  American  institutional 
and  constitutional  ideas  —  was  preserved,  to  wit :  That 
the  people  of  the  acquired  territory  should  not  be 
indefinitely  governed  in  absolutism  without  their  own 
consent,  but  should  at  some  tune  become  a  part  of  the 
governing  United  States. 

Pitt  the  elder  —  Earl  of  Chatham  —  the  "  Empire 
Builder,"  in  a  speech  in  Parliament,  once  said:  — 

"From  all  the  history  of  the  European  world  since  the  later 
days  of  the  Roman  Republic,  there  is  no  more  important  lesson  to 
be  learned  than  this,  —  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  free  people  to 
govern  a  dependent  people  despotically,  without  endangering  its 
own  freedom." 

I  have  always  been  endeared  to  this  utterance  and  it 
has  been  the  guiding  star  of  my  own  walk  from  the  mo 
ment  that  the  United  States  undertook  to  "go  a' world- 
powering"  with  purposes  of  "benevolent  assimilation" 
in  the  Philippine  Archipelago  for  a  pretext. 

It  was  in  January,  1802,  that  Jefferson  sent  his 
message  to  Congress  proposing  the  exploration  of  the 
Western  country  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This  resulted 
in  the  Clark  and  Lewis  exploration,  which  gave  us  our 
firmest  basis  for  claim  of  title  to  the  Oregon  country. 
It  will  be  noted  that  this  was  before  the  cession  of 
Louisiana  and  not  afterwards.  Nor  was  the  exploration 
to  be  confined  to  the  Louisiana  territory.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  went  far  beyond  it,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  221 

Thus  Thomas  Jefferson  not  only  gave  us  Louisiana 
by  purchase,  but  gave  us  the  claim,  by  exploration  and 
discovery,  to  the  Oregon  country,  which  carried  our 
boundary  to  the  Pacific  and  made  us  truly  Continental. 

Jefferson's  vision  was  broad.  He  saw,  as  no  other 
man  of  his  time  saw,  the  importance  of  adding  to  the 
territory  of  the  United  States  contiguous  lands  fit  for 
homes  for  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  people  and  for 
European  immigrants.  He  saw  its  importance  as  a 
safety  valve  socially  and  politically,  for  us  and  for  the 
white  race  in  Europe,  and  its  importance  as  a  part  of 
his  great  Peace  Policy.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore, 
that  the  annexation  of  Louisiana  was  not  the  limit  of 
his  endeavor,  but  that  during  his  entire  administration 
he  was  engaged  in  attempting  to  secure  the  Floridas  by 
negotiation  and  purchase.  Had  it  not  been  for  John 
Randolph's  venom  in  delaying  Congressional  action, 
until  it  was  too  late,  we  probably  would  have  secured 
Florida  under  his  administration  by  a  process  as  peace 
ful  and  noiseless,  as  the  one  by  which  he  had  secured 
Louisiana.  At  least  General  Armstrong,  our  Minister 
at  Paris,  thought  and  said  so. 

Even  in  his  retirement  at  Monticello,  he  was  still 
thinking  of  the  expansion  of  our  domain,  and  in  one  of 
his  letters  to  the  President,  April  27,  1809,  he  discloses 
what  his  limit  as  an  expansionist  was:  The  Continent 
with  Canada  plus  Cuba  and  there  a  stone  to  be  set  up 
inscribed  "ne  plus  ultra.'11 

Of  course  he  then  thought  the  Canadians  would  be 
more  than  willing. 

Still,  the  thing  desired  by  him  is  never  mere  domain  — 
mere  dirt;  —  it  is  "an  empire  for  liberty"!  That  is 


222      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Jeffersonian-democratic-expansion.  If  there  be  any 
spot  over  which  expansion  does  not  give  more  room  for 
liberty,  let  us  none  of  it.  There,  the  very  air  stains  our 
flag. 

There  were  many,  who  apprehended  menace  to  our 
institutions  from  the  magnitude  of  our  territory.  In 
this  connection,  read  Jefferson's  language  in  his  second 
inaugural  address:  — 

"I  know  that  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  has  been  disapproved 
of  by  some,  from  a  candid  apprehension  that  the  enlargement  of  our 
territory  would  endanger  its  Union.  But  who  can  limit  the  extent 
to  which  the  federative  principle  may  operate  effectively?  The 
larger  our  associations,  the  less  it  will  be  shaken  by  local  passions." 

The  following  expression  occurs  in  a  letter  to  De 
Marbois:  — 

"Contrary  to  the  principal  of  Montesquieu,  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  larger  the  extent  of  a  country  the  more  firm  its  Republican 
structure,  if  founded  not  on  conquest,  but  in  principles  of  compact 
and  equality." 

That  is,  of  course,  under  a  Federal  system. 

He  held  that  possessing  the  West  would  hold  the 
Union  together,  cementing  the  North  and  South  more 
nearly  together,  because  it  would  be  inhabited  by  the 
children  of  both.  It  has  had  that  effect.  Even 
Missouri  and  Kentucky,  though  slave  States,  failed  to 
secede.  Indiana  and  Illinois,  settled  mainly  by  South 
erners,  sent  their  sons  to  the  front  to  maintain  the 
Union.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  chief  material 
consideration  actuating  them  was  a  desire  to  preserve 
the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River;  to  permit 
it  to  "flow  free  and  unfretted  to  the  sea."  Without 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  223 

the  weight  of  the  Middle  West  in  the  scale,  we  of  the 
South  would  have  won  our  independence  with  ease. 

I  do  not  think  the  wise  student  of  history  will  doubt 
the  proposition,  that  even  if  the  Southern  States  had 
succeeded  in  maintaining  a  separate  and  independent 
confederacy,  another  war  would  before  long  have  been 
necessary  to  settle  disputes  between  the  Northern  and 
Southern  Confederacies,  growing  out  of  the  navigation 
of  the  Ohio,  and  Mississippi  —  certainly  if  the  South 
had  asserted  the  sole  right  of  navigation  of  the  lower 
Mississippi,  which,  from  the  very  nature  of  things,  it 
probably  would  have  done. 

Jefferson  had  drawn  up  in  1784  the  draft,  whose  pro 
vision  —  establishing  our  policy  of  holding  our  terri 
tories  under  self-governing  Congressional  guardianship, 
while  being  educated  for  statehood  —  was  later  em 
bodied  in  the  ordinance  for  the  government  of  the 
Northwest  Territory.  This  great  provision  riveted  on 
our  institutions  forever  that  policy,  of  governing 
territories  —  whether  old  or  newly  acquired  —  which 
we  pursued  to  the  end  of  the  Spanish  War.  Out  of  the 
Louisiana  Territory  were  carved  twelve  great  States. 
When,  later,  territory  was  acquired  as  a  result  of  the 
Mexican  War,  the  question  as  to  the  relationship  it 
and  States  already  in  the  Union  held  to  one  another 
was  so  well  settled,  that  it  was  not  even  questioned, 
and  out  of  that  territory  other  States  were  carved. 

Jefferson  was  right;  it  is  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to 
conceive  of  any  limit  to  the  area  of  country,  which 
can  be  governed  under  a  Federal  model,  provided:  first, 
that  the  Central  government  leave  the  federated  states 
full  self-government  in  domestic  affairs,  and  second, 


224     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

that  the  Federal  government  itself  have  power  to  tax 
individuals  and  strength  to  defend  the  self-governing 
states  from  all  foreign  foes,  and  third,  that  the  popu 
lations  of  the  states  be  homogeneous  in  language, 
race,  and  love  of  liberty.  When  I  say  homogeneous  in 
race,  I  mean  that  all  shall  be  of  the  white  or  Caucasian 
race. 

It  seems  to  us  right  odd  now  to  imagine  a  Federal 
Republic  of  Anglo-Saxony  composed  of  England,  Scot 
land,  Wales  and  Ireland,  and  the  several  self-governing, 
English-speaking  British  Colonies,  Quebec,  Ontario, 
New  Zealand,  etc.,  and  the  several  American  States, 
each  a  sovereign  state  in  the  Federal  Union.  This 
sort  of  thing  did  not  seem  so  strange  in  our  early 
colonial  history  to  Englishmen  and  some  Americans. 
Fiske,  in  his  "  American  Revolution,"  says  truthfully 
that  in  England  such  a  scheme  was  favorably  re 
garded  by  Adam  Smith,  and  in  America  by  James  Otis 
and  Benjamin  Franklin.  He  might  have  added  that 
Pitt  the  elder  had  something  like  it  in  his  head.  It 
may  be,  at  some  time  in  the  remote  future,  that  such  a 
scheme  may  yet  evolve  itself;  minus  a  King,  minus  a 
Federal  House  of  Lords,  minus  an  Established  National 
Church  —  in  short  with  substantially  an  American 
Federal  Republican  Constitution  —  perhaps  with  a  re 
sponsible  British  Ministry,  and  responsible  opposition 
system  —  constituting  real  parliamentary  govern 
ment,  quickly  responsive  to  election  returns  —  which 
we  unfortunately  do  not  now  have,  as  a  new  graft 
on  our  system.  If  so,  there  would  never  be  another 
war  on  the  high  seas,  and  navies  would  be  needed 
chiefly  to  do  ocean  police  service.  Qui  sail? 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  225 

3.      JEFFERSONIAN   SIMPLICITY 

Jeffersonian  simplicity  grew  out  of  the  idea  that 
officials  are  public  servants  and  should  be  accessible  to 
the  citizen;  that  there  should  be  no  oriental  mystery 
about  republican  office  holders  —  who  are  to  be  of  the 
people  in,  as  well  as  out  of,  office. 

Parton  wrote  an  article,  entitled  "  Jefferson's  Return 
from  France  in  1789,"  which  appeared  in  the  November 
number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  of  the  year  1872. 

He  says  that  while  in  France  as  Ambassador,  Jeffer 
son's  " family  soup/7  as  he  himself  called  it,  played  a 
great  part:  "He  lived  in  the  easy,  liberal  style  of 
Virginia,  that  harmonized  as  well  with  the  humor  of  the 
time,  as  with  his  own  character  and  habits."  It  was 
this  easy,  liberal  style  of  Virginia  that  Jefferson  hoped 
afterwards  to  make  permanent  in  the  White  House. 

When  Jefferson  reached  New  York  on  March  21, 
1790,  if  he  read  the  Gazette  of  the  United  States,  pub 
lished  the  day  before,  he  was  probably  not  a  little 
astonished  to  find  what  follows:  — 

"There  must  be  some  adventitious  properties  infused  into  the 
government  to  give  it  energy  and  spirit,  or  the  selfish,  turbulent 
passions  of  men  can  never  be  controlled.  This  has  occasioned  that 
artificial  splendor  and  dignity,  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  courts 
of  so  many  nations.  Some  admiration  and  respect  must  be  excited 
towards  public  officers,  by  their  holding  a  real  or  supposed  superiority 
over  the  mass  of  the  people.  .  .  .  Avarice  and  ambition  increase 
with  population;  and  in  a  large,  opulent  community  the  dazzling 
appendages  and  pompous  formalities  of  courts  are  introduced  to 
form  a  balance  to  the  increasing  ardor  of  the  selfish  passions,  and 
to  check  that  ascendancy  which  aspiring  individuals  would  other 
wise  gain  over  the  public  peace  and  authority." 
16 


226      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

When  this  same  paper  gave  an  account  of  the  arrival 
of  Mrs.  Washington  in  New  York  on  May  30,  1789,  the 
attempt  to  imitate  " British  Court  society"  entries 
was  almost  childlike  in  its  simplicity.  There  were 
noticed  as  present  "Lady  Sterling,"  "Lady  Mary  Watts," 
"Lady  Kitty  Duer,"  besides  Lady  Washington,  etc. 
When  the  President  attended  his  birthday  balls  — 
themselves  imitations  of  the  Court  of  St.  James  —  "a 
platform  was  reared  at  one  end  of  the  ballroom,  a  sort 
of  dais,  and  upon  this  was  a  sofa,"  where  dear,  plain  old 
George  Washington  of  Mount  Vernon  plantation  was 
persuaded  to  sit  "reclined"  with  his  "consort"! 

This  foolish  movement  —  looking  towards  the  estab 
lishment  of  pomps  and  ceremonies,  cavalcadings,  forms 
and  frills  of  office  in  America,  meant  under  the  surface 
much  more  then  than  we  are  inclined  to  think  now. 
The  Senate  wanted  to  call  the  President:  "His  High 
ness,  George  Washington,  President  of  the  United  States 
and  Protector  of  their  liberties."  The  House  very 
wisely  resolved  that  he  should  be  called  simply  "  George 
Washington,  President  of  the  United  States,"  and  Jef 
ferson  very  keenly  sympathized  with  the  action  of  the 
House.  This,  in  the  view  of  his  enemies,  is  his  first 
display  of  "disloyalty"  to  George  Washington,  and  a 
betrayal  of  "French  influence";  but  the  Presidents 
have  ever  since  then  been  called  plainly,  "Mr.  Presi 
dent,"  and  no  harm  has  come  of  it.  Mr.  Jefferson 
himself  enjoys  the  rare  distinction  of  having  been 
generally  called  simply  Mr.  Jefferson.  He  wrote  to 
Madison  on  August  28th  and  said:  — 

"In  every  instance,  the  new  government  has  ushered  itself  into 
the  world  as  honest,  masculine,  and  dignified.  It  has  shown 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  227 

genuine  dignity,  in  my  opinion,  in  exploding  adulatory  titles;  they 
are  the  offerings  of  abject  baseness,  and  nourish  that  degrading  vice 
in  the  people." 

I  have  thought  that  one  of  the  exquisitely  humorous 
things  in  our  history  proceeded  from  Senator  Grayson, 
of  Virginia,  when,  the  Senators,  being  in  a  state  of 
worry  about  proper  titles  to  be  given  our  high  officials, 
he  suggested  that  the  President  should  be  called 
"His  Limpid  Highness,"  and  more  exquisitely  still, 
that  the  Vice-President  should  be  called  "His  Super 
fluous  Excellency  " ! 

Washington  wore  a  sword  at  his  inauguration  and  at 
his  receptions,  and  carried  a  cocked  hat  in  his  hand,  so 
that  nobody  could  feel  encouraged  to  shake  hands.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  shaking  hands  was  then,  as  now, 
the  American  way  of  expressing  both  cordiality  and 
equality  of  intercourse.  It  looks  childish  now  that  men 
should  have  quarreled  about  these  things,  but  it  was 
not  unreasonable  that  those  who  wanted  to  democratize 
American  institutions  in  that  day  should  have  regarded 
them  with  suspicion.  "Give  a  fool  an  inch  and  he 
will  take  an  ell."  Especially  a  "  sas-si-e-ty  "  fool.  The 
democrats  knew  that;  and  they  knew  the  weight  which 
would  be  carried  in  the  popular  imagination  by  con 
ventional  ceremonies,  if  they  became  stereotyped. 
Jefferson  knew,  as  Napoleon  did,  that  "the  world  is 
governed  by  imagination."  The  latter  knew  that 
republican  simplicity  must  be  sacrificed,  if  he  was  to 
be  a  real  emperor;  the  former  that  it  must  be  retained, 
if  we  were  to  have  a  real  democracy.  "Jeffersonian 
simplicity"  consisted  in  divorcing  officialdom  from 
forms,  ceremonies,  and  assumptions  of  superiority, 


228      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

and  in  abolishing  "mysteries"  of  administration. 
Hence,  when  Secretary  of  State,  he  continued,  on  the 
social  side  of  his  life,  his  "  family  soups,"  and  on  the 
official  side,  introduced  in  the  State  Department  that 
admirable  simplicity  and  directness,  which  has  con 
tributed  so  immensely  to  our  weight  and  influence  in 
intercourse  with  other  nations. 

When  he  resigned  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State  and 
left  Philadelphia,  he  and  Washington  were  on  the  frank 
and  friendly  terms  that  Virginia  country  gentlemen  and 
neighbors  love  best  to  stand  upon.  Some  of  his  enemies 
have  attempted  to  attack  the  sincerity  of  his  professions 
of  attachment  to  the  President,  expressed  in  contem 
poraneous  letters  to  his  friends,  and  in  his  daily  conver 
sations,  by  calling  attention  to  entries  in  other  letters 
and  in  his  Ana  making  fun  of  certain  foolish  forms 
and  ceremonies,  throne  elevations,  sword-by-side  and 
cocked-hat-under-arm  receptions,  etc.  I  do  not  think 
any  impartial  man  could  doubt  my  sincerity  of  attach 
ment  to  another,  because  I  did  not  see  fit  to  revere  his 
forms  and  ceremonies  —  in  this  particular  case,  forms 
and  ceremonies,  which  even  St.  Beuve  stamps  as  part 
of  a  "frenesie  quasi  monarchique" 

Earlier  in  his  life,  when  about  to  take  his  seat  as 
Vice-President,  Jefferson  had  illustrated  his  dislike  of 
public  scenes.  He  wrote  to  Senator  Taswell  of  Vir 
ginia,  saying  that  he  had  heard  that  on  the  former 
elections  of  President  and  Vice-President,  "gentlemen 
of  considerable  office  were  sent  to  notify  the  parties 
chosen,"  and  expressed  the  hope  that  in  his  case  "the 
Senate  would  adopt  that  form  of  notification  which 
would  always  be  least  troublesome  and  most  certain," 
the  post  office. 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  229 

Mr.  Tucker  records  that  so  consistent  was  Jefferson 
in  his  dislike  of  empty  titles,  that  his  visiting  cards 
never  contained  anything  else  except  the  words 
"  Thomas  Jefferson,"  no  matter  what  office  he  was 
holding. 

He  announced  in  substance,  when  he  became  Presi 
dent,  that  he  would  receive  people  at  the  White  House 
just  as  he  would  receive  them  at  Monticello  —  just 
as  a  man  of  good  breeding  may  receive  them  any 
where —  on  the  twin  principles  of  absolute  "  equality 
among  guests,"  and  above  all,  of  "place  aux  dames." 

He  attempted  to  introduce  republican  simplicity 
into  the  official  life  of  Washington.  There  was  found 
among  his  papers  at  his  death  one  marked,  " Etiquette," 
worth  reading,  I  think,  both  because  it  is  curious  and 
because  it  is  in  the  main  sound.  This  had  been  com 
municated  to  his  Cabinet,  and  formed  the  rule  of  con 
duct  of  his  administration. 

No  administration  since  Jefferson  came  in  has  dared 
to  depart  from  the  precedent  of  simplicity,  which  he 
set  in  sending  a  written  message  to  Congress,  to  which 
no  reply  was  expected.  None  has  ever  dared  to 
attempt  to  restore  the  " speeches  from  the  throne" 
made  by  Washington  and  Adams.  Presidents  now 
shake  hands  at  receptions  with  their  guests,  as  Jefferson 
did,  and  do  not  stand  up  "girded  with  the  sword  of 
State,"  with  cocked  hats  under  their  arms,  as  snobs 
persuaded  honest,  modest,  noble  George  Washington 
to  do.  Presidents  now,  with  their  wives,  "stand  upon 
the  level"  at  White  House  receptions,  and  not  on  "a 
raised  dais."  "Sassiety"  did  not  conquer  as  long  as 
Jefferson  himself  was  at  the  helm.  It  made  up  its 


230      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

mind  that  he  should  not  do  away  with  levees,  so  its 
pretty  and  fashionable  women  gathered  themselves 
together  —  and  went,  upon  one  of  the  regular  levee 
days,  to  the  White  House,  with  a  view  of  forcing  the 
President's  hand  —  he  being  known  to  be  a  polite  man, 
and  especially  polite  to  the  ladies.  They  found,  how 
ever,  that  the  wise  old  fox  had  gone  horseback  riding. 
They  determined  to  await  his  return.  The  Master  of 
Monticello  came  back,  riding  boots  on,  somewhat  soiled 
with  dust,  and  politely  desirom  "not  to  keep  them 
waiting  "  came  in  just  as  he  was.  He  fulsomely  ex 
pressed  his  delight  and  surprise  to  find  them  there  — 
his  happiness  in  the  contemplation  of  the  " coincidence" 
of  their  presence  and  his  return !  He  greeted  everybody 
kindly,  and  as  each  made  motion  to  go,  he  urged  each 
further  to  remain.  The  women  could  not  help  heartily 
laughing  at  themselves,  and  never  attempted  to  repeat 
the  performance.  They  came  to  capture  or  to  ridicule. 
They  left  captured  or  feeling  ridiculed. 

The  Republicans  were  more  rejoiced  at  Jefferson's 
abolition  of  pomp,  ceremonies,  parade,  and  cavalcades, 
than  they  were  in  consequence  of  many  other  more 
important  things.  The  Federalists  viewed  what  they 
called  "a  Jacobin  wreck"  with  alarm  and  despair! 
Little  things  that  seem  to  us  now,  with  the  glamor  of 
the  past  about  them,  interesting,  if  not  beautiful, 
meant  more  then  than  they  would  mean  now,  and  would 
have  grown,  by  now,  to  mean  more  than  they  did  then. 
Adams,  unfortunately,  did  not  see  what  Jefferson  did, 
that  George  Washington  constituted  a  whole  class  by 
himself. 

In    a    chapter    headed    "Jeffersonian    Simplicity," 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  231 

evidently  put  in  quotation  marks  with  a  view  of 
ridiculing  the  subject  matter  and  Jefferson,  Curtis 
opens:  "The  inauguration  of  Jefferson  as  President  of 
the  United  States  was  attended  with  as  much  pomp  and 
ceremony  as  the  conditions  would  permit."  I  submit 
that  this  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  history.  If  the  state 
ment  had  been  true,  it  would  not  have  made  much 
difference;  but  it  is  not  true.  Jefferson  carefully 
eschewed  all  pomp  and  ceremony,  and  did  it  for  a 
purpose  —  the  purpose  of  demolishing  the  "frenesie 
quasi  monarchique."  He  walked  from  his  boarding 
house,  which  was  on  New  Jersey  Avenue*  north,  and 
not  far  from  the  Capitol,  and  a  few  friends,  among  them 
some  Senators  and  Representatives,  accompanied  him 
to  the  Senate  room  to  be  sworn  in.  It  is  idle  to  say 
that  he  could  not  have  ridden  in  his  own  coach,  sent 
up  from  Monticello,  or  in  any  sort  of  a  state  coach  he 
might  have  fancied  to  have  built.  It  is  equally  idle 
to  say  that  he  could  not  have  had  a  thousand  men  on 
horseback,  if  he  had  wanted  them. 

Curtis  very  properly  exposes  the  story  of  Jefferson's 
going  to  the  Capitol  on  horseback,  and  "tying  his  horse 
to  the  fence."  This  was  not  true  for  three  reasons,  first, 
because  the  distance  was  too  short  to  make  it  necessary 
to  have  his  horse,  and,  secondly,  because  from  the  best 
information  I  can  get  there  was  no  fence  there  at  that 
time,  and  third  because  a  good  horseman  —  and  Jeffer 
son  was  about  the  best  —  would  not  hitch  his  horse  to 
a  fence,  if  he  could  find  a  swinging  limb,  or  even  a 
hitching  post  under  a  shed. 

After  Jefferson  had  taken  the  oath,  he  went  back  to 
his  boarding  house,  taking  his  old  seat,  and  declining 


232      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

amid  laughing  protest  to  go  to  the  head  of  the  table. 
He  stayed  there  several  days  before  he  went  to  Monti- 
cello.  He  rode  meantime  freely  and  unattended  around 
Washington.  Afterwards,  when  President,  if  he  wanted 
to  see  a  Senator  or  a  Member  of  Congress,  he  rode  up 
to  the  Capitol  and  saw  him  —  hitching  his  horse  under 
one  of  the  construction  sheds  on  the  uncompleted  House 
wing  side  of  the  Capitol;  hence,  perhaps  by  confusion, 
the  horse  was  given  him  at  the  inauguration. 

Jeffersonian  simplicity  was  a  real  thing  and  not  a 
thing  to  be  put  in  quotation  marks. 

His  "  democratic  simplicity,"  as  Curtis  calls  it,  was 
not  "affectation/'  as  he  stigmatizes  it.  Jefferson  was 
trying  to  teach  a  useful  lesson  to  office  holders  in  a 
Republic  —  to  show  that  a  plain  man,  who  was  elected 
President  had  nothing  to  do  except  to  go  on  being  just 
what  he  had  been  —  a  plain  man  —  a  man,  "for  a* 
that."  It  was  the  very  contrary  of  affectation.  He 
saw  no  reason  why  he  should  "affect"  something  new 
to  him  and  therefore  unnatural,  just  because  he  had 
been  elected  President.  The  people  had'nt  sent  him 
to  Washington  to  "put  on  airs." 

It  is  said  that  his  conduct  was  affected  and  insincere, 
because  when  Minister  to  France  he  had  "lived  in 
great  elegance,"  and  "knew  better  than  any  man  in 
America,  perhaps,  the  habits  of  European  courts." 
It  was  for  that  very  reason,  that  he  recurred  to  simple 
habits,  and  it  proves  no  inconsistency.  Every  man  of 
common  sense  "when  in  Rome  does  as  Rome  does," 
and  when  Jefferson  was  Minister  to  France,  he,  of 
course,  was  not  rustic  enough  not  to  comply,  upon  state 
occasions,  with  Parisian  court  customs. 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  233 

When  he  was  President  of  these  United  States,  he 
was  the  court ! 

It  would  have  been  just  as  absurd  for  him  to  have 
permitted  his  conduct,  as  chief  magistrate  in  America, 
to  be  guided  by  the  usages  of  the  court  of  France,  as 
to  have  permitted  his  conduct  in  France  to  be  guided 
by  "the  common  usages  of  American  gentlemen." 

Curtis  says  that  "He  abandoned  the  courtly  deport 
ment  for  which  he  had  previously  been  noted,  and 
adopted  manners  that  were  offensive  to  people  of  refined 
taste."  If  by  "courtly  deportment"  is  meant  courtesy 
and  genial  good  breeding,  he  never  abandoned  it.  The 
manners  which  he  carried  into  the  White  House,  being 
the  manners  of  "Monticello"  and  "Gunston  Hall" 
and  "Brandon"  and  "Mount  Vernon"  and  "Rose- 
mont,"  were  not  offensive,  and  could  not  have  been 
offensive  to  anybody,  except  snobs. 

Possibly  Jefferson  intended  that  they  should  be  offensive 
to  them.  Perhaps,  he  was  not  entirely  without  intent 
to  rebuke  the  tinsel  Federalist  "Upper-Ten,"  which 
had  grown  to  imagine  that  it  ruled  the  roast  in  Washing 
ton.  Curtis  got  his  ideas  from  reading  the  letters 
written  by  the  left-over  Federalists  in  Washington  — 
men  and  women  —  who  were  trying  to  decry  democ 
racy,  and  render  it  ridiculous  and  offensive.  Some 
of  these  criticisms  were  brought  to  Jefferson's  ears,  and 
had  the  effect  only  of  making  him  emphasize  what  he 
was  already  doing,  and  maybe  sometimes  over-empha 
size  it.  Under  his  administration,  the  White  House 
was  open  to  all  comers  under  the  same  conditions  as 
his  house  on  "Little  Mountain"  had  been  and  would  be 
later  —  subject  to  the  master  of  the  house  not  being 


234      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

engaged  and  the  guest  behaving  decently.  Although 
his  receiving  a  British  Ambassador  "in  slippers  run 
down  at  the  heels"  was  certainly  too  careless,  it  was, 
after  all,  a  small  matter,  and  I  don't  see  yet  why  so 
much  noise  was  made  about  it.  Jefferson  was  Jefferson 
and  President  of  the  United  States,  whether  he  was  in 
boots,  shoes  or  slippers,  and  provided  he  was  polite  and 
courteous  to  the  Ambassador,  it  was  none  of  the 
Ambassador's  business  how  he  was  dressed  —  if  only 
within  statutory  limits,  and  certainly  not  a  state  affair. 

As  President,  he  himself  at  public  functions  asserted 
no  precedence  over  governors  of  States,  nor,  for  that 
matter,  over  anybody  else  who  happened  to  be  present. 
A  governor  having  once  written  him  to  know  what  the 
etiquette  would  be  when  they  should  meet,  he  replied: 
"My  dear  Sir,  there  will  be  no  etiquette."  The 
President's  residence  was  no  longer  called  "The 
Palace." 

Unfortunately,  these  troublesome,  expensive  in 
augural  processions  that  Jefferson  thought  to  do  away 
with,  have  gradually  come  back  to  plague  us!  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  some  strong,  wise  man  on  being  elected 
President  will  do  away  with  them.  They  do  no  good 
and  result  generally  in  several  deaths  from  pneumonia 
caused  by  exposure  to  the  weather.  They  are,  at  best, 
an  "idle  foolish  parade"  —  a  weak  imitation  of 
"coronation"  proceedings  —  resulting  in  nothing  of 
any  benefit  to  anybody,  except  a  temporary  increase  of 
revenues  to  Washington  hotels  and  boarding-houses 
and  saloon  keepers  and  street  cars. 

Jefferson  did  not  want  the  image  of  a  President 
impressed  on  the  coinage.  He  did  not  want  birthdays 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  235 

celebrated,  and  never  would  permit  his  own  to  be 
celebrated,  where  he  could  help  it. 

He  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  the  effects  of  hero-worship 
of  any  description.  It  is  the  great  danger  of  a  democ 
racy.  It  will  remain  so  until  the  end  of  time.  Men 
ought  to  be  taught  more  and  more  to  reverence  laws 
and  institutions  and  less  and  less  to  reverence  offices 
and  men. 

I  shall  quote  from  page  122  of  Merwin's  "  Thomas 
Jefferson":  — 

"The  ascendancy  of  Jefferson  and  the  Republican  party  pro 
duced  a  great  change  in  the  government  and  in  national  feeling,  but 
it  was  a  change,  the  most  important  part  of  which  was  intangible, 
and  is  therefore  hard  to  describe.  It  was  such  a  change  as  takes 
place  in  the  career  of  an  individual  when  he  shakes  off  some  con 
trolling  force,  and  sets  up  in  life  for  himself.  The  common  people 
felt  an  independence,  a  pride,  an  elan,  which  sent  a  thrill  of  vigor 
through  every  department  of  industry  and  adventure. 

"The  simplicity  of  the  forms  which  President  Jefferson  adopted 
were  a  symbol  to  the  national  imagination  of  the  change  which  had 
taken  place.  .  .  ." 

Now  for  substantial  results  of  Jeffersonian  simplicity 
in  the  public  business.  There  must  be,  to  use  the  words 
of  his  Inaugural  Address,  "a  wise  and  frugal  govern 
ment."  It  behooved  him  first  then  to  simplify  our 
bookkeeping  and  to  unmystify  our  finances  —  to  render 
all  plain  of  comprehension  to  the  people.  It  was  their 
right,  because  it  was  their  money.  Let  us  then  instruct 
our  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Jefferson's  letter  to  Gallatin,  of  April  1, 1801,  inaugu 
rating  this  reformation,  is  condensed  by  Professor 
Tucker  as  follows:  — 


236     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"On  the  1st  of  April,  1801,  Mr.  Jefferson  addressed  a  letter  to 
him  on  this  subject,  in  which,  after  approving  the  secretary's  plan 
of  having  one  aggregate  fund  from  which  every  thing  was  to  be  paid, 
he  further  suggests  that  all  the  money  in  the  treasury  should  form 
a  consolidated  mass,  from  which  the  whole  expenditure  should  be 
paid,  and  should  have  preference  in  the  following  order  —  1.  The 
interest  of  the  public  debt.  2.  Such  parts  of  the  principal  as  the 
creditors  had  a  right  to  demand.  3.  The  expenses  of  the  govern 
ment.  4.  Such  parts  of  the  debt  as  the  government  had  the  right 
of  paying.  To  this  he  proposes  that  degree  of  clearness  and  sim 
plicity  in  the  accounts  that  every  intelligent  man  in  the  Union  could 
readily  understand  them,  and  detect  abuses.  'Our  predecessors/ 
he  remarks,  'have  endeavored,  by  intricacies  of  system,  and  shuf 
fling  over  the  investigation  from  one  officer  to  another,  to  cover 
everything  from  detection.  I  hope  we  shall  go  in  the  contrary 
direction,  and  that  by  our  honest  and  judicious  reformations,  we 
may  be  able,  within  the  limits  of  our  time,  to  bring  things  back  to 
that  simple  and  intellectual  system  on  which  they  should  have 
been  organized  at  first.'" 

As  soon  as  possible,  on  Gallatin's  recommendation, 
Jefferson  authorized  the  sale  of  the  United  States  Bank 
stock,  owned  by  the  government.  The  money  was  put 
into  the  sinking  fund.  Thus  begins  the  dissolution  of 
the  marriage  between  the  monied  element  and  the 
government,  so  carefully  solemnized  by  the  Federalists. 

"Now  let  us  adjust  our  income  and  expenditures  to 
one  another!"  He  recommended  the  abolition  of 
internal  taxes,  which  shocked  the  Federalists  —  not 
believing  that  he  could  carry  on  the  government  with 
out  them,  because  they  had  said  that  they  were  neces 
sary.  Congress  obeyed  his  wish,  and  did  abolish  the 
internal  taxes,  and  we  did  get  along  without  them,  with 
a  larger  annual  surplus  and  a  larger  annual  payment 
on  the  public  debt  than  had  been  found  possible  under 
his  predecessor. 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  237 

Further  pursuing  his  simplification  of  government, 
he  urged  the  abolition  of  unnecessary  offices,  thereby 
decreasing  the  patronage  at  his  disposal  and,  at  a  time, 
when  a  new  and  hungry  party  was  coming  into  power. 
He  promised  later  to  lay  before  Congress  a  list  of 
superfluous  offices.  This  he  did,  and  over  one-fourth 
of  the  former  Executive  patronage  was  abolished. 

The  policy  of  making  appropriations  in  "lump  sums," 
as  it  has  been  called,  he  reprobated,  because  it  carried 
no  information  to  the  citizens  concerning  the  precise 
purpose  for  which  the  money  was  to  be  spent,  and  he 
suggested  that  wherever  possible  the  purpose  of  the 
appropriation  of  each  dollar  be  specifically  stated  in 
the  law  appropriating  it.  He  recommended  provisions 
which  would  prevent  executive  officers  from  deflecting 
amounts  appropriated  for  one  purpose  to  another,  or 
devoting  amounts  appropriated  in  lump  sum  to  unex 
pected  purposes,  which  was  really  the  evil  struck  at. 
To  a  surprising  extent  this  evil  was  corrected  by 
that  Congress.  He  recommended  placing  the  duty  of 
accounting  for  all  the  public  money  in  one  department. 
This  recommendation  prevailed  and  is  in  use  today: 
"Auditors  in  the  Treasury  Department  for  the  Post 
Office  Department"  and  "for"  other  departments 
being  the  instrumentality  through  which  it  is  done. 

While  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  the 
Federalists  had  everywhere  said  that  he  would  repudi 
ate  the  public  debt.  The  truth  is,  he  wanted  to  pay  it 
off  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  Hamilton  did  not  want 
unduly  to  hasten  this  process,  because  the  outstanding 
debt  "interested"  the  monied  classes  in  the  "stabil 
ity"  of  the  government,  and  thereby  "strengthened" 


238      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

it.  Jefferson  proceeded  at  once  to  pay  off  the  debt  and 
continued  its  payment  to  its  extinction,  once  more 
falsifying  the  predictions  of  his  enemies. 

I  think  I  may  safely  say  that  this  has  become  a 
cardinal  doctrine  with  the  party  which  he  founded 
and  has  ever  since  been  professed  as  such  by  its  leaders, 
even  when  temporarily  varied  from  in  practice.  Cleve 
land's  first  administration,  1884-88,  furnished  an 
example,  almost  equal  to  Jefferson's,  of  the  theory  and 
its  observance. 

Under  Jefferson's  and  Gallatin's  thoroughly  simple 
and  comprehensible  management,  the  difficulty  of 
purchasing  an  imperial  domain,  and  at  the  same  time 
meeting  the  interest  and  all  payable  principal  of  the 
public  debt,  was  managed  hand  in  hand  with  the 
abolition  of  some  old  taxes  and  without  levying  a 
single  new  tax  or  increasing  an  old  one.  It  was  man 
aged  upon  the  Jeffersonian  principle  of  providing  for 
the  interest  and  the  sinking  fund,  so  that  the  debt 
might  be  completely  satisfied  within  the  life  of  a  gener 
ation. 

Professor  Albert  Bushnell  Hart  does  not  seem  to  be 
one  of  those  who  accept,  without  any  sufficient  reason 
for  it,  the  legend  that  our  present  treasury  system  comes 
over  from  Hamilton.  The  truth  is,  that  there  was  a 
marked  revolution  even  in  the  method  of  keeping  the 
books,  and  in  the  whole  policy  of  the  Treasury,  when 
Gallatin  went  in  as  Jefferson's  Secretary.  Professor 
Hart  well  says:  — 

"The  system  established  by  Gallatin  remains  to  this  day,  and 
is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  perfect  organizations  of  a  great 
financial  machine,  which  can  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world." 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  239 

SOME   MINOR  MATTERS 

Coinage  System 

Jefferson  is  the  father  of  our  coinage  system.  More 
justly  described,  his  was  a  scheme  of  coinage,  weights 
and  measures,  because  the  cardinal  idea  of  it  was  the 
decimal  system,  applied  equally  to  all  three.  In  it  he 
recommended  the  pendulum  as  a  standard  of  measure. 
Or,  if  this  was  difficult  in  practice,  a  measure  taken  at 
latitude  45 °,  corresponding  to  it.  He  reinforced  his 
selection  of  latitude  45°  as  the  place  of  measuring  his 
uniform  cylindrical  rod,  as  being  a  place  "upon  which 
the  nations  of  both  hemispheres  might  unite." 

He  shattered  Robert  Morris's  proposed  unit  of  value 
scheme,  and  succeeded  in  having  substituted  for  it 
his  own.  It  is  the  very  simple  and  remarkably  satis 
factory  system  which  we  have  now.  His  common 
sense  suggested  at  once  that  the  Spanish  milled  dollar, 
which  "circulated  more  with  us  than  any  other  coin," 
should  be  taken  as  the  basis  for  both  division  and 
multiplication.  This  was  the  Spanish  "Piece  of 
Eight,"  i.  e.,  eight  bits,  a  bit  being  one-eighth  of  a 
dollar.  The  phrase  "two-bits,"  meaning  twenty-five 
cents,  and  "four-bits,"  meaning  fifty  cents,  and  "six- 
bits,"  meaning  seventy-five  cents,  are  still  in  use  in  the 
South,  and  I  have  seen  old  bookkeepers  indicate  on 
their  books  "eight  bits"  instead  of  a  dollar. 

Indians 

In  his  time  as  Secretary  of  State  he  also  had  the 
duties  of  the  present  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  In  this 
capacity,  Jefferson  delivered  a  Cabinet  opinion  in  which 


240      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

he  assumed  the  position  that  the  Federal  Government 
alone  possessed  the  right  of  acquiring  title  to  Indian 
lands  from  the  Indian  tribes,  and  that  this  should  be 
done  by  treaty.  This  became  a  settled  policy  of  the 
Government,  and  until  within  the  last  few  years,  we 
treated  the  Indian  tribes  as  a  sort  of  subordinated 
foreign  powers,  ceding  us  their  lands  by  solemn  treaty. 

Apportionment 

Under  Washington's  administration  the  ratio  of  one 
representative  to  every  thirty  thousand  inhabitants 
was  fixed,  but  when  the  bill  for  the  first  apportionment 
of  Representatives  in  Congress  passed  instead  of 
applying  the  ratio  to  each  State,  it  was  applied  to  the 
population  of  the  entire  country.  Jefferson  gave  the 
President  a  Cabinet  opinion  to  the  effect  that  this 
violated  the  true  intent  of  the  Constitution,  and 
urged  an  executive  veto.  The  President  agreed  with 
Jefferson,  notwithstanding  Hamilton's  opinion  to  the 
contrary,  and  vetoed  the  bill.  The  House  then  passed 
the  bill,  applying  the  ratio  to  the  population  of  each 
State  separately,  a*nd  this  has  become  the  permanent 
custom  after  every  succeeding  census. 

Power  o]  Congress  over  Interstate  Commerce 

On  February  28,  1803,  Congress  passed  a  law  "pro 
hibiting  the  importation  of  any  negro,  mulatto,  or 
other  person  of  color  into  any  State  where,  by  the  laws 
thereof,  their  admission  is  prohibited,"  and  affixing 
penalties  for  the  violation  of  the  act.  Jefferson  signed 
the  act.  This  is  curious  and  valuable  right  now,  inas- 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  241 

much  as  it  furnishes  a  precedent  for  a  bill,  now  pending 
in  Congress,  to  prohibit  the  importation  of  alcoholic 
stimulants  into  any  State,  where,  "by  the  laws  thereof," 
their  sale  is  prohibited. 

This  Jeffersonian  precedent  is  of  high  permanent 
value.  Congress  should  not  obstruct,  but  should 
cooperate  with  the  States,  when  exercising  their  police 
powers  for  the  protection  of  public  health,  or  public 
morals,  whenever  Congress  thinks  the  end,  sought  by 
the  State,  not  violative  of  natural  right,  nor  of  national 
policy. 

Electoral  College 

Jefferson  advocated  a  constitutional  amendment 
which  would  enable  Presidents  to  be  elected  by  a 
direct  vote  of  the  people,  thus  abolishing  the  electoral 
college,  the  people,  however,  voting  in  each  State  as 
citizens  of  the  State,  each  State's  vote  counting  to  the 
extent  of  the  sum  of  its  Senators  plus  its  Represen 
tatives.  That  amendment  ought  to  be  passed  now. 
Some  day  we  shall  have  trouble  in  the  electoral  college 
because  of  some  elector's  not  keeping  faith  and  voting 
as  his  constituents  have  voted.  There  is  no  law  to 
prevent  him.  There  is  no  legal  penalty  to  which  he 
would  be  subjected.  There  is  only  a  pledge  on  honor 
—  sometimes  even  that  is  only  impliedly  made. 

Freedom  of  the  Press 

In  his  second  inaugural  address,  after  referring  to 
the  licentiousness  of  the  press  and  to  the  calumnies 
and  slander,  etc.,  he  announces  what  was  his,  and  what 
ought  forever  to  remain,  the  permanent  policy  of  the 
Republic,  by  asking:  — 
17 


242      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

"Whether  freedom  of  discussion,  unaided  by  power,  was  not 
sufficient  for  the  propagation  and  protection  of  truth  —  whether 
a  government  conducting  itself  in  the  true  spirit  of  its  constitution, 
with  zeal  and  purity,  and  doing  no  acts  which  it  would  be  unwilling 
the  whole  world  should  witness  —  can  be  written  down  by  falsehood 
and  defamation." 

He  proudly  refers  to  the  fact  that  the  Federalist 
experiment  to  throttle  and  suppress  free  speech  and 
printing  had  been  tried  and  failed,  and  to  the  result 
of  the  Republican  experiment  of  the  contrary  theory 
which  "had  been  honorable  to  those  who  served 
them,  and  consolatory  to  the  friends  of  man,  who 
believed  he  might  be  intrusted  with  his  own  affairs." 
You  will  agree  that  he  was  justified  in  this  paean  of 
self -congratulation.  He  had  kept  the  same  faith  in 
office  that  he  had  preached  when  out  of  it,  though 
everybody  knew  that  he  had  suffered  more  from  the 
license  of  the  press  than  any  man,  who  has  ever  been 
prominent  in  American  history,  and  suffered  because 
he  was  not  the  victim  of  the  hatred  of  individuals,  but 
of  classes. 

SUMMING  UP 

Meanwhile  his  administration  had  paid  off  thirty- 
three  millions  of  the  public  debt,  which  had  been 
somewhat  increasing  before  he  came  in;  it  had  reduced 
taxes  very  much;  it  had  reduced  patronage,  thereby 
simplifying  the  Government  a  great  deal,  and  had 
added  to  the  national  domain  the  vast  area  of  the 
Louisiana  Territory,  and  put  down  Burr's  conspiracy 
without  war  or  bloodshed;  so  adeptly  that  the  Federal 
ists  were  beginning  to  deny  that  there  ever  had  been 
a  conspiracy  at  all;  it  had  laid  the  foundations  for  the 


INFLUENCE  AS  PRESIDENT  243 

future  successful  contention  for  the  possession  of  the 
Oregon  country;  it  had  benefited  its  own  commerce  and 
that  of  the  civilized  world  by  putting  down  the  Barbary 
powers;  it  had  kept  the  peace  amid  untold  difficulties 
and  with  unspeakable  benefit;  it  had  captured  the 
common  sense  and  imagination  of  the  country;  it  had 
destroyed  quasi-monarchical  forms,  ceremonials,  caval- 
cadings  and  "demnition  nonsense "  generally;  it  had 
given  a  practical  illustration  of  the  fact  that  govern 
ment  can  be  carried  on  successfully  without  tying  to 
itself  the  monied,  or  any  other  special  interest,  and  that 
it  could  be  carried  on  by  those,  who  regarded  it  as  a 
public  trust;  he  had  given  practical  demonstration  of 
the  fact  that  a  democracy  is  not  irresponsible  or 
dangerous,  and  that  restraints  upon  freedom  of  speech 
and  of  the  press  are  not  necessary  to  make  a  govern 
ment  strong;  he  had  put  the  example  of  George  Wash 
ington  in  declining  a  third  term  upon  a  basis  of  reason 
and  general  principle,  destined  to  appeal  for  all  tune  to 
the  American  people,  and  although  his  embargo  policy 
had  pressed  hard  upon  the  navigating  States,  the 
pressure  had  been  no  harder,  nor  the  dissatisfaction 
any  greater,  than  war  would  have  brought  in  its  train, 
as  was  afterwards  demonstrated. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE  ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION 
IN  AMERICA 

IN  connection  with  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
freedom  of  religion  and  speech,  and  to  the  idea  that 
government  ought  not  to  attempt  to  stifle  the  expression 
of  opinion,  but  that  church  and  state  should  be  separate, 
this  is  worth  quoting  from  Jefferson's  "  Notes  on 
Virginia":  — 

"It  does  me  no  injury  for  my  neighbor  to  say  there  are  twenty 
gods,  or  no  God.  It  neither  picks  my  pocket  nor  breaks  my  leg." 
.  .  .  "It  is  error  alone  which  needs  the  support  of  government. 
Truth  can  stand  by  itself.  Subject  opinion  to  coercion  and  whom 
will  ye  make  your  inquisitors?  Fallible  men,  governed  by  bad 
passions,  by  private  as  well  as  public  reasons.  And  why  subject 
it  to  coercion?  Difference  of  opinion  is  advantageous  to  religion. 
The  several  sects  perform  the  office  of  censor  morum  over  each  other. 
Is  uniformity  attainable?  Millions  of  innocent  men,  women  and 
children  since  the  introduction  of  Christianity  have  been  burnt, 
tortured,  fined  and  imprisoned;  yet  we  have  not  advanced  one  inch 
towards  uniformity.  Let  us  reflect  that  the  earth  is  inhabited  by 
thousands  of  millions  of  people;  that  these  profess  probably  a 
thousand  different  systems  of  religion;  that  ours  is  but  one  of  the 
thousand;  that  if  there  be  but  one  right,  and  ours  be  that  one,  we 
should  wish  to  see  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  wandering 
sects  gathered  into  the  fold  of  truth.  But,  against  such  a  majority, 
we  cannot  effect  this  by  force.  Reason  and  persuasion  are  the  only 
practicable  instruments.  To  make  way  for  these,  free  inquiry 
must  be  indulged  by  them;  and  how  can  we  wish  others  to  indulge  it, 
while  we  refuse  it  ourselves?',' 

244 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  »    245 

Such  utterances  as  these  form  no  small  part  of  the 
permanent  influence  of  Thomas  Jefferson  upon  Ameri 
can  "  Church  and  State "  thought.  Nothing  in  Mil 
ton's  " License  of  Public  Printing"  is  more  eloquent. 
Scarcely  anything  in  Victor  Hugo  is  more  short- 
sentence-pithy.  It  was  a  decade  probably  after  this 
utterance  before  he  had  stamped  its  essence  upon  the 
statute  books  of  Virginia  in  the  first  written  statute 
that  the  world  ever  knew,  granting  not  toleration 
only,  but  absolute  freedom  of  religion,  and  not  only  to 
all  sects  of  Christians,  but  to  all  people. 

Again  Jefferson  wrote:  — 

"I  never  will  by  any  word  or  act  bow  to  the  shrine  of  intolerance, 
|  or  admit  a  right  of  inquiry  into  the  religious  opinions  of  others. 
On  the  contrary,  we  are  bound  —  you  and  I,  and  everyone  —  to 
make  common  cause,  even  with  error  itself,  in  order  to  maintain 
the  common  right  of  freedom  of  conscience.  .  .  .  For  this  reason, 
were  my  opinions  up  to  the  standard  of  those  who  arrogate  the 
right  to  question  me,  I  would  not  countenance  that  arrogance  by 
descending  to  explain." 

Jefferson's  views  about  the  church  are  not  more  radi 
cal  than  those  of  Emerson.  As  the  editor  of  the  New 
England  Magazine  says:  — 

"The  curious  thing  about  it  all  is  that  the  pulpit  fulminated  as 
it  did  against  Jefferson  and  let  Adams  alone,  for  as  Parton  truth 
fully  says,  'there  was  not  a  pin  to  choose  between  the  heterodoxy 
of  the  two  candidates/" 

Why  the  difference?  The  answer  is  obvious.  Jeffer 
son  legislated  disestablishment  and  the  loss  to  the 
clergy  of  glebes  and  salaries.  John  Adams  never  did 
though  he  once  said  with  a  spirit  of  hate  that  Jefferson 
never  felt  and  therefore  never  indulged  in:  " Until  this 


246      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

awful  blasphemy  [the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity]  be  got 
rid  of  there  will  never  be  any  liberal  science  in  the 
world."  But  it  was  not  until  1834  that  church  and 
state  were  completely  divorced  in  Massachusetts. 

Having,  as  I  have  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  dealt 
a  great  blow  in  Virginia  for  the  freedom  of  the  land  and 
for  freedom  of  social  life  from  special  privilege  and 
incumbrance,  Jefferson  next  dealt  one  in  favor  of 
freedom  of  faith  and  worship.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  standing  committee  of  the  Virginia  House  on 
religion,  a  committee  which  was  directed  to  "meet  and 
adjourn  from  day  to  day,  and  take  under  their  con 
sideration  all  matters  and  things  relating  to  religion  and 
morality,  with  power  to  send  for  persons,  papers  and 
records."  Upon  this  committee,  as  in  the  House  of 
Delegates  itself,  the  established  church  of  Virginia 
predominated.  Jefferson  here  began  his  resolute  work 
for  the  declaration  of  the  principles,  which  were  after 
wards  expressed  by  him  in  the  Bill  for  Religious  Free 
dom,  throwing  off  the  domination  of  the  church  in 
Virginia,  as  the  bills  for  the  abolition  of  primogeniture 
and  entail  had  thrown  off  the  domination  of  the  great 
families. 

The  curious  inquirer  may  read  what  Jefferson  says  in 
his  "  Memoir  "  and  in  his  "  Notes  on  Virginia  "  on  this 
subject;  how  the  church  had  shown  at  once  intolerance 
and  incompetency,  how  the  laws  had  been  adapted  to 
the  purposes  of  the  church  by  making  heresy  a  capital 
offence,  punishable  by  burning,  and  by  very  many 
other  less,  but  oppressive  penalties.  Happily  for 
Virginia,  these  laws  were  more  honored  in  the  breach 
than  in  the  observance.  The  history  of  the  slow  and 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  247 

gradual  steps  by  which  ecclesiastical  influence  in  state 
affairs  and  political  influence  in  church  affairs  were 
destroyed  in  Virginia  is  very  interesting  and  it  will  pay 
any  student  to  make  a  special  study  of  it.  It  was  a 
step-by-step  performance,  leading  up  through  a  series 
of  years  to  the  gradual  climax,  which  was  the  Bill  for 
Religious  Freedom,  concerning  the  authorship  of  which 
Jefferson  took  so  much  pride,  that  he  had  it  inscribed 
on  his  tomb,  as  one  of  the  three  things,  because  of  which 
he  wanted  to  be  remembered. 

Under  the  Virginia  Act  of  Assembly  of  1705,  if  a 
person  brought  up  in  the  Christian  religion  denied  the 
being  of  a  God,  or  denied  the  Trinity,  or  denied  the 
Christian  religion  to  be  true,  or  denied  the  Scriptures 
to  be  of  Divine  authority,  he  was  punishable,  first,  by 
deprivation  of  the  right  to  hold  office  or  employment; 
on  the  second  offense,  by  disability  to  sue  or  to  inherit, 
or  to  take  any  gift  or  legacy,  etc.,  and  by  three  years7 
imprisonment  without  bail.  If  the  offender  were  a 
father,  he  was  deprived  of  the  right  of  the  custody  of 
his  own  children.  The  first  step  was  to  repeal  the  laws, 
which  rendered  criminal  the  maintenance  of  any 
religious  opinions,  or  the  failure  to  attend  church,  or 
the  exercise  of  any  mode  of  worship  except  that  of  the 
established  church.  The  next  was  to  exempt  dis 
senters  from  contributions  to  the  support  of  the 
established  church.  The  next  was  to  suspend  levies 
on  the  members  even  of  the  established  church  for  the 
salaries  of  their  own  ministers;  but  this  last  was  limited 
in  its  operation  until  the  next  session  of  the  House  of 
Delegates.  Jefferson's  opponents,  however,  on  No 
vember  19th,  passed  a  declaration  asserting  that 


248      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

" assemblies  ought  to  be  regulated,"  and  that  " legal 
provision  ought  to  be  made  for  the  succession  of  the 
clergy,  and  for  superintending  their  conduct;"  in  other 
words,  a  legal  declaration  of  the  wisdom  and  righteous 
ness  of  a  qualified  union  of  church  and  state.  Per 
mission  was  later  secured  for  any  person  paying  an 
assessment  for  the  support  of  the  clergy  to  designate  a 
pastor  of  his  choice,  even  though  not  a  member  of  the 
Established  Church,  to  whom  his  proportion  of  the 
assessment  should  go.  \  j' 

On  the  15th  the  House  agreed  that  the  compulsory  j 
levies  to  support  the  established  clergy  should  again( 
be  suspended  for  another  session. 

Thus,  toe  to  toe,  the  pulling  match  continued  — 
the  disciples  of  liberty  now  losing,  now  gaining  ground. 
Up  to  the  time  Jefferson  left  the  Virginia  Legislature, 
he  had  not  yet  accomplished  his  full  purpose.  He  left 
his  statute  for  Religious  Freedom  on  strong  ground, 
as  a  legislative  legacy  to  his  friends,  and  they  finally 
won  it.  The  law  as  it  appears  upon  the  statute  books 
of  the  State  of  Virginia  is  not  word  for  word  as  it  was 
drawn  by  Jefferson.  The  changes  were  verbal.  The 
words  of  the  bill,  as  given  in  the  "  Notes  on  Virginia," 
are  not  the  words  of  the  original,  but  of  the  bill  as 
amended,  and  as  it  was  passed  by  the  General  As 
sembly.  The  original  bill  may  be  found  in  Randall's 
"Life  of  Jefferson,"  volume  1,  pages  219  and  220,  with 
the  parts  which  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  struck  out 
in  italics,  and  the  parts  which  they  added  in  brackets, 
and  some  alterations  placed  in  the  margin.  I  will 
excerpt  a  part  only  of  this  great  instrument,  with 
the  italics,  brackets  and  marginal  notes  which  go 
with  it:  — 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  249 

"A  Bill  for  Establishing  Religious  Freedom. 
"Well  aware  that  the  opinions  and  belief  of  men  depend  not  on 
their  own  free  will,  but  follow  involuntarily  the  evidence  proposed  to 
their  minds;  that  Almighty  God  had  created  the  mind  free,  and 
manifested  His  supreme  will  that  free  it  shall  remain  by  making  it 
altogether  insusceptible  of  restraint;  that  all  attempts  to  influence 
it  by  temporal  punishments  or  burdens,  or  by  civil  incapacitations, 
tend  only  to  beget  habits  of  hypocrisy  and  meanness,  and  are  a  de 
parture  from  the  plan  of  the  Holy  Author  of  our  religion,  who  being 
,Lord  both  of  body  and  mind,  yet  chose  not  to  propagate  it  by 
^coercions  on  either,  as  was  in  His  Almighty  power  to  do,  but  to 
„  extend  its  influence  on  reason  alone;  that  the  impious  presumption 
^of  legislators  and  rulers,  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  who  being 
„  themselves  but  fallible  and  uninspired  men,  have  assumed  dominion 
„  over  the  faith  of  others,  setting  up  their  own  opinions  and  modes  of 
thinking  as  the  only  true  and  infallible,  and  as  such  endeavoring 
to  impose  them  on  others,  hath  established  and  maintained  false 
religions  over  the  greatest  part  of  the  world,  and  through  all  time; 
that  to  compel  a  man  to  furnish  contributions  of  money  for  the 
propagation  of  opinions  which  he  disbelieves  and  abhors,  is  sinful 
and  tyrannical;  that  even  the  forcing  him  to  support  this  or  that 
teacher  of  his  own  religious  persuasion,  is  depriving  him  of  the  com 
fortable  liberty  of  giving  his  contributions  to  the  particular  pastor, 
whose  morals  he  would  make  his  pattern,  and  whose  powers  he  feels 
most  persuasive  to  righteousness,  and  is  withdrawing  from  the 
ministry  those  temporary  rewards,  which  proceeding  from  an  ap-  temporal 
probation  of  their  personal  conduct,  are  an  additional  incitement  to 
earnest  and  unremitting  labors  for  the  instruction  of  mankind; 
that  our  civil  rights  have  no  dependence  on  our  religious  opinions, 
any  more  than  on  our  opinions  in  physics  or  geometry;  that,  there 
fore,  the  proscribing  any  citizen,  as  unworthy  the  public  confidence, 
by  laying  upon  him  an  incapacity  of  being  called  to  (the)  offices 
of  trust  and  emolument,  unless  he  profess  or  renounce  this  or  that 
religious  opinion,  is  depriving  him  injuriously  of  those  privileges  and 
advantages  to  which,  in  common  with  his  fellow-citizens,  he  has  a 
natural  right;  that  it  tends  also  to  corrupt  the  principles  of  that  very 
religion,  it  is  meant  to  encourage,  by  bribing,  with  a  monopoly  of 
worldly  honors  and  emoluments,  those  who  will  externally  profess 


250      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

and  conform  to  it;  that  though  indeed  those  are  criminal,  who  do 
not  withstand  such  temptation,  yet  neither  are  those  innocent, 
who  lay  the  bait  in  their  way;  that  the  opinions  of  men  are  not  the 
object  of  civil  government,  nor  under  its  jurisdiction;  that  to  suffer  the 
civil  magistrate  to  intrude  his  powers  into  the  field  of  opinion  and 
to  restrain  the  profession  or  propagation  of  principles,  on  (the) 
supposition  of  their  ill  tendency  is  a  dangerous  fallacy,  which  at  once 
destroys  all  religious  liberty,  because  he  being  of  course  judge  of 
that  tendency  will  make  his  opinions  the  rule  of  judgment,  and 
approve  or  condemn  the  sentiments  of  others,  only  as  they  shall 
square  with,  or  differ  from,  his  own;  that  it  is  time  enough  for  the 
rightful  purposes  of  civil  government  for  its  officers  to  interfere, 
when  principles  break  out  into  overt  acts  against  peace  and  good 
order;  and,  finally,  that  truth  is  great  and  will  prevail,  if  left  to 
herself;  that  she  is  the  proper  and  sufficient  antagonist  to  error, 
and  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  conflict,  unless  by  human  inter 
position  disarmed  of  her  natural  weapons  —  free  argument  and 
debate;  errors  ceasing  to  be  dangerous  when  it  is  permitted  freely 
to  contradict  them. 

"We,  the  General  Assembly,  do  enact,  That  no  man  shall  be 
compelled  to  frequent  or  support  any  religious  worship,  place  or 
ministry  whatsoever,  nor  shall  be  enforced,  restrained,  molested, 
or  burthened  in  his  body  or  goods,  nor  shall  otherwise  suffer  on 
account  of  his  religious  opinions  or  belief;  but  that  all  men  shall 
be  free  to  profess,  and  by  argument  to  maintain,  their  opinions 
in  matters  of  religion,  and  that  the  same  shall  in  no  wise  diminish, 
enlarge,  or  affect  their  civil  capacities. 

"And  though  we  know  well  that  this  Assembly,  elected  by  the 
people  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  legislation  only,  have  no  power 
to  restrain  the  acts  of  succeeding  Assemblies,  constituted  with 
powers  equal  to  their  own,  and  that  therefore  to  declare  this  act 
irrevocable  would  be  of  no  effect  in  law;  yet  we  are  free  to  declare, 
and  do  declare,  that  the  rights  hereby  asserted  are  of  the  natural 
rights  of  mankind,  and  that  if  any  act  shall  be  hereafter  passed  to 
repeal  the  present  act,  or  to  narrow  its  operation,  such  act  will  be  an 
infringement  of  natural  right." 


" Natural  right"   again;  the 
table!" 


things   of  the  first 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  251 

Jefferson  judged  himself,  as  he  did  other  men,  wisely, 
when  he  selected,  as  one  of  the  three  things  to  be 
remembered  about  him,  and  to  be  cut  into  the  granite 
of  his  tombstone,  that  he  was  "The  author  of  the 
Virginia  Statute  for  Religious  Freedom."  It  was  the 
first  of  its  kind,  for  though  the  charter  of  Rhode 
Island  proclaimed  in  most  absolute  terms,  the  principle 
of  religious  liberty,  the  same  law  declared  this  law  not 
applicable  to  Roman  Catholics.  Maryland  had  been 
for  a  long  time  the  only  asylum  in  the  British  Empire 
where  the  principle  of  religious  toleration  was  estab 
lished.  It  was  established  there  by  the  Roman  Cath 
olics,  and  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  They  were 
seeking  some  place  in  the  Empire  where  they  could 
unpenalized  profess  their  faith,  and,  being  in  a  religious 
minority,  they  were  compelled  to  grant  the  same 
liberty  to  others.  But  even  in  Maryland  the  principle 
of  religious  liberty  applied  only  to  those,  who  believed 
in  the  Divinity  of  Christ. 

The  next  step  in  Jefferson's  reform  process  dis 
closes  his  trait  of  "  taking  things  by  the  smooth  handle," 
while  never  sacrificing  the  essential  end.  The  church 
having  been  disestablished  and  freedom  of  religion  — 
not  mere  toleration,  but  freedom  —  having  been 
secured,  it  remained  to  do  justice  to  the  old  church  in 
the  case,  hence  his  bill,  entitled  "A  Bill  for  Saving  the 
Property  of  the  Church,  heretofore  by  Law  established," 
and  providing  that  the  glebes,  church  belongings, 
furniture,  arrearages  of  debt  due  the  church,  and  all 
church  property  of  every  description,  which  had  come 
to  it  by  private  donation,  "  should  be  saved  in  all  tune  to 
come  to  the  members  of  the  English  church,"  resident 


252      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

in  the  parish,  where  the  property  was  situated,  and 
reciting  that  it  could  be  used  by  them,  as  they  chose, 
in  support  of  their  clergymen.  This  did  justice, 
observed  the  sanctity  of  the  property  relation,  while 
not  militating  at  all  against  the  principle  of  a  total 
separation  of  church  and  state,  and  entire  freedom  of 
religious  opinion  and  practice.  The  bill  also  provided 
that  certain  surplusage,  accruing  out  of  the  fact  that 
former  levies  had  exceeded  the  law,  should  be  restored 
to  the  public  by  being  put  into  the  poor  rates  of  the 
parish,  but  even  in  this  case,  in  order  to  be  generous 
to  the  defeated  antagonists,  it  was  provided,  that  if 
the  parish  had  no  glebe,  this  surplus  was  to  be  applied 
to  the  purchase  of  a  glebe. 

In  1784  the  friends  of  the  church  rallied  again  and 
made  an  effort  to  pass,  as  an  amendment,  a  bill  en 
titled:  "A  Bill  to  Establish  a  Provision  for  Teachers  of 
the  Christian  Religion/'  by  a  levy  of  a  general  assess 
ment  for  that  purpose.  To  show  how  far  their  strength 
had  been  broken,  however,  this  bill  allowed  each  person 
to  direct  the  payment  of  his  own  contribution  to  the 
church  of  his  choice.  The  struggle  against  the  reaction 
was  fierce,  but  George  Mason  and  George  Nicholas  and 
James  Madison,  in  the  absence  of  their  chief,  stood  their 
ground  and  conquered,  notwithstanding  the  strength 
of  the  churches,  the  landed  aristocracy,  and  the  in 
fluence  of  such  great  names  as  George  Washington, 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  and  others. 

George  Washington,  on  October  3,  1785,  wrote  to 
George  Mason:  — 

"Although  no  man's  sentiments  are  more  opposed  to  any  kind 
of  restraint  upon  religious  principles  than  mine  are,  yet  I  confess 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  253 

I  am  not  among  the  number  of  those,  who  are  so  much  alarmed  at 
the  thought  of  making  people  pay  towards  the  support  of  that  which 
they  profess." 

This  shows  that  Washington  had  not  yet  learned  the 
lurking  danger  in  any  connection  whatsoever  between 
church  and  state,  nor  the  great  truth  that  men's 
religious  opinions  are  things  between  them  and  God, 
and  that  the  support  of  churches  ought  to  rest  upon  the 
voluntary  contributions  of  those  who  profess  their  faith. 

Richard  Henry  Lee,  on  November  26,  1784,  wrote  to 
James  Madison  this  rather  remarkable  protest  against 
what  I  suppose  he  considered  "theory"  and  radical 
ism: — 

"Refiners  may  weave  reason  into  as  fine  a  web  as  they  please, 
but  the  experience  of  all  time  shows  religion  to  be  the  guardian  of 
morals;  and  he  must  be  a  very  inattentive  observer  in  our  country, 
who  does  not  see  that  avarice  is  accomplishing  the  destruction  of 
religion  for  want  of  a  legal  obligation  to  contribute  something  for 
its  support." 

In  other  words,  there  could  be  no  motive  for  the  non- 
contribution  to  a  church  except  avarice,  and  this 
irreligious  motive  should  be  overcome  by  state  com 
pulsion.  Madison  and  Mason  secured  a  delay  in  the 
proposed  legislation  until  the  next  session,  giving  as 
their  reason  a  desire  to  submit  the  question  to  the 
people,  thus  proposing  a  sort  of  referendum.  Madison 
then  appealed  to  the  people  in  a  written  argument, 
unanswered  because  unanswerable,  and  at  the  next 
session,  in  1786,  the  proposed  assessment,  which  was 
to  have  gone  along  with  Jefferson's  statute  for  religious 
freedom,  was  abandoned  as  hopeless,  and  the  bill  for 
Religious  Freedom  passed,  with  the  amendments, 


254      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

which  I  shall  now  indicate.  You  will  see  from  exami 
nation  that  the  Legislature  struck  out  this  language  of 
Jefferson's  original  draft,  to  wit:  "that  the  opinions 
and  belief  of  men  depend  not  on  their  own  will,  but 
follow  involuntarily  the  evidence  proposed  to  their 
minds."  I  rather  think  they  did  well,  because  al 
though  with  a  perfectly  unbiased  and  open  mind,  the 
statement  is  true;  yet  it  is  also  true,  that,  in  most 
cases,  an  opinion  is  the  result  as  much  of  prejudice  and 
environment,  or  heredity,  or  an  inclination  to  reach  a 
certain  conclusion,  as  it  is  of  evidence. 

Jefferson's  original  draft  read  in  the  next  sub-sen 
tence:  "that  Almighty  God  had  created  the  mind  free," 
and  then  there  followed  this  language,  which  the  Legis 
lature  also  struck  out:  "and  manifested  His  supreme 
will,  that  free  it  should  remain  by  making  it  altogether 
insusceptible  of  restraint."  In  this  respect,  the  Legis 
lature  seems  to  have  been  fighting  a  truism.  It  is 
impossible  to  conceive  of  any  way  in  which  the  human 
mind  can  be  restrained.  Human  utterance  may  be; 
human  conduct  may  be.  A  man  may  be  forced  by 
law  to  bottle  up  his  opinion  in  his  own  mind,  but  the 
opinion  itself  cannot  be  restrained  against  his  conviction 
and  will. 

Jefferson  next  recited,  that  God  had  chosen  not  to 
propagate  religion  by  coercion  either  of  body  or  mind 
"as  was  in  His  Almighty  power  to  do."  Then  follow 
these  words  in  Jefferson's  draft,  stricken  out  by  the 
Legislature:  "but  to  extend  its  influence  on  reason 
alone."  In  striking  this  out  the  Legislature  likewise 
acted  wisely,  because  the  assertion  begged  the  very 
question  at  issue.  All  people  believing  in  the  Divinity 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  255 

of  Jesus  believed  that  the  influence  of  religion  was 
extended  by  the  grace  of  God,  as  well  as  by  the  reason 
of  man. 

As  John  T.  Morse  says  in  another  connection, 
"Jefferson's  pen  sometimes  ran  away  with  him." 
Whose  does  not?  In  the  next  sentence  to  which  I 
shall  call  attention  it  undoubtedly  did  so.  He  said 
in  the  original  draft  that  "to  compel  a  man  to  furnish 
contributions  of  money  for  the  propagation  of  opinions, 
which  he  disbelieves  and  abhors  is  sinful  and  tyrannical." 
The  Legislature  struck  out  the  words  "and  abhors," 
and  thereby  strengthened  the  statute.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  a  man  should  abhor  a  religion,  in  order 
that  the  conclusion  should  be  rightfully  reached,  that 
he  ought  not  to  be  forced  to  contribute  to  it.  It  is 
sufficient  that  he  disbelieves  in  it.  It  is  sufficient,  in 
fact,  whether  he  believes  in  it  or  not,  that  he  simply 
does  not  choose  to  contribute. 

The  Legislature  was  indefensible  in  striking  out  the 
next  phrase  to  which  I  am  going  to  call  attention. 
They  showed  by  striking  it  out  that  they  had  not  yet 
risen  to  the  full  level  of  the  philosophy  of  freedom  of 
religion,  and  were  still  staggering  around  in  the  quag 
mire  of  religious  toleration.  The  phrase  to  which  I 
refer  is  this:  "that  the  opinions  of  men  are  not  the 
object  of  civil  government,  nor  under  its  jurisdiction." 
If  there  be  a  self-evident  truth  in  the  world  this  is  one. 

But  it  was  exceedingly  fortunate  that  the  bill  should 
have  passed  even  as  it  was,  nor  was  its  strength  materi 
ally  weakened  by  the  passage  of  these  motions  to  strike 
out,  nor  by  the  several  non-essential  substitutions  and 
additions,  which  were  really  only  three. 


256      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

First  the  substitution  of  the  word  " temporal"  for 
the  word  " temporary7'  in  the  sentence,  " withdrawing 
from  the  ministry  those  temporal  rewards."  The  word 
was  the  accustomed  one,  and  its  substitution  was  an 
improvement. 

The  next  substitution  was  striking  out  the  words, 
"We,  the  General  Assembly,  do  enact,"  and  substi 
tuting  for  them,  "Be  it  therefore  enacted  by  the  General 
Assembly." 

The  third  was  to  substitute  the  words  "the  power" 
for  the  word  "powers." 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  this  statute  consists 
in  the  closing  clause  of  it,  where  the  attempt  is  made  to 
forestall  and  prevent  any  repeal  of  it  by  future  legis 
latures,  although  acknowledging  their  power  to  repeal, 
and  confessing  inability  to  restrain  the  exercise  of  that 
power.  The  clause  accomplished  its  end,  however. 
It  was  ever  afterwards  considered  in  Virginia,  that  the 
assertion  in  the  concluding  words  of  the  enactment,  to 
wit:  "We  do  declare  that  the  rights  hereby  asserted 
are  of  the  natural  rights  of  mankind,  and  that  if  any 
act  shall  be  hereafter  passed  to  repeal  the  present,  or 
to  narrow  its  operation,  such  an  act  will  be  an  infringe 
ment  of  natural  right,"  were  binding. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  American  people  are  prepared  to  main 
tain  by  bloodshed,  if  needful,  that  any  act  of  any  legis 
lature,  state  or  national,  attempting  to  interfere  with 
the  absolute  freedom  of  religious  opinion  and  of  religious 
worship  is  an  infringement  of  a  natural  right,  and  that 
the  state  has  no  power  over  the  matter;  that  it  is  not 
under  its  jurisdiction,  except  when  overt  acts  injurious 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  257 

to  the  state,  or  to  a  person,  or  to  property  occur,  as  a 
consequence  of  religious  belief,  and  then  that  it  is  the 
act  which  is  to  be  punished,  or  restrained,  and  not  the 
belief. 

Not  only  did  Jefferson's  enemies  accuse  him  of  taking 
political  views  from  France,  but  religious  views,  too. 
This  is  absurd  to  anybody  who.  knows  the  history  of 
the  man's  life.  His  religious  views  were  entertained 
by  him,  when  he  was  a  young  man  at  William  and  Mary 
College.  They  were  shared  by  George  Wythe,  his  good 
friend  and  law  teacher,  and  partially  shared,  I  am 
inclined  to  believe,  by  his  much  esteemed  and  beloved 
Professor  of  Mathematics.  His  statute  for  the  Estab 
lishment  of  Religious  Freedom  was  drawn  by  him  years 
before  he  went  to  France.  *  The  French  encyclopedists 
were,  for  the  most  part,  unqualified  atheists,  and  when 
not,  were  purely  materialistic  agnostics.  Jefferson  was 
a  devout  believer  in  the  existence  and  the  providence  of 
God,  and  in  a  future  state.  I  have  sometimes  thought 
that  he  was  more  nearly  a  Christian  in  his  belief  than 
any  man  who  has  lived  since  Christ.  His  Unitarianism 
was  a  reverential  and  a  cautious,  as  well  as  a  rational, 
belief.  It  was  not  the  "sneering,  leering"  belief  of 
Voltaire,  which  necessarily  led  to  "a  divorce  of  life 
from  morals,"  nor  Gibbon's  "  solemn  mocking  of  a 
solemn  creed"  with  a  solemn  sneer.  Jefferson  was 
afterwards  charged  with  being  an  atheist,  principally 
by  the  Calvinistic  and  Congregational  priests,  because 
they  did  not  see  any  difference  between  a  denial  of  the 
Divinity  of  Christ  and  atheism. 

I  have  said  that  his  belief  was  not  only  reverential, 
but  that  it  was  cautious.  He  seemed  to  have  a  sensi- 

18 


258      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

live  fear  of  intermeddling  with  the  religious  belief  of 
other  people,  even  with  that  of  his  own  children.  In 
fact,  his  children  and  his  grandchildren  did  not  know 
until  after  he  was  dead,  that  he  had  prepared  the  so- 
called  "Jefferson  Bible."  He  was  always  most  careful 
not  to  be  a  propagandist,  but  to  insist  that  every  man's 
belief  should  be  formed,  as  his  own  had  been,  inde 
pendently  and  on  one's  own  dread  responsibility,  "not 
for  the  rightfulness,  but  for  the  righteousness  of  it." 
His  beliefs  were  expressed  in  a  few  confidential  letters 
to  Priestley  and  Adams,  and  others,  who  entertained 
the  same  opinions,  and,  in  one  or  two  cases,  they  were 
expressed  to  Dr.  Franklin,  who  likewise  entertained 
them,  but,  in  a  cannier  way,  kept  them  to  himself. 
These  letters,  for  the  most  part,  were  not  published 
until  after  his  death.  Many  of  his  friends  thought  that 
his  grandson  made  a  mistake  in  publishing  them,  and  I 
have  an  idea  that  Jefferson  would  have  thought  so 
himself.  However,  he  left  his  letters  and  documents  to 
his  grandson,  without  limiting  the  authority  to  use 
them,  as  he  chose. 

The  hatred,  calumny  and  lies  —  scurrillous  and  cruel 
—  visited  on  his  devoted  head  for  the  balance  of  his 
life  on  account  of  the  Disestablishment  in  Virginia,  and 
because  of  the  anger  and  fear  arising  from  the  justly 
anticipated  imitation  of  his  legislation  elsewhere,  are 
wondrous.  During  his  campaign  for  the  Presidency 
there  was  positively  no  end  to  the  bitter  denunciation. 
It  was  charged  by  one  preacher  in  New  England  that 
Jefferson  had  "obtained  his  property  by  fraud  and 
robbery;"  that  in  one  instance  he  had  "  defrauded  and 
robbed  a  widow  and  fatherless  children,"  of  whose 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  259 

estate  he  was  executor,  "of  ten  thousand  pounds 
sterling,  by  keeping  the  property  and  paying  them  in 
money  at  the  nominal  rate,  when  it  was  worth  no  more 
than  forty  for  one,"  and  this  stupendous  lie  was  closed 
with  the  assertion  that  the  reverend  gentleman  "could 
prove  it"! 

The  New  England  clergy  seem  to  have  adopted  him 
as  a  favorite  text.  One,  Doctor  Mason,  declared  that 
Mazzei  had  once  told  a  Reverend  Mr.  Smith,  who  had 
told  him,  that  Jefferson  had  said  of  a  ruined  church: 
"It  is  good  enough  for  him  who  was  born  in  a  manger." 
Dr.  Mason  also  charged  that  Jefferson  was  solicitous 
"to  wrest  the  Bible  from  the  hand  of  the  people's 
children." 

In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Rush,  Jefferson  said  that  the  clergy 
believed  that  any  portion  of  power  confided/  in  him, 
Jefferson,  would  be  exerted  in  opposition  to  all  church 
establishment  schemes.  Then  he  adds :  — 

"And  they  believe  rightly;  for  I  have  sworn  upon  the  altar  of 
God  eternal  hostility  against  every  form  of  tyranny  over  the  mind 
of  man.  But  this  is  all  they  have  to  fear  from  me;  and  enough, 
too,  in  their  opinion.  And  this  is  the  cause  of  their  printing  lying 
pamphlets  against  me,  forging  conversations  for  me  with  Mazzei, 
Bishop  Madison,  etc." 

The  man's  superb  moral  courage  was  shown  in  the 
fact  that  he  dared,  on  coming  into  power  as  President, 
to  remember  to  keep  a  promise  to  Thomas  Paine  made 
in  consequence  of  his  services  to  the  cause  of  liberty 
in  America  during  the  American  Revolution,  notwith 
standing  the  intense  and  almost  universal  hatred  of 
Paine  which  had  grown  out  of  his  notorious  anti-reli 
gious  views.  Paine  was  then  in  France,  where  he  had 
been  cooperating  with  the  French  revolutionists,  and 


260      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

where,  by  the  way,  be  it  remembered  to  his  credit,  he 
had  had  the  courage  and  the  good  sense  to  vote  against 
the  king,  when  that  was  dangerous,  and  against  the 
death  decree  pronounced  upon  the  king,  when  to  do 
that  was  yet  more  dangerous.  He  was  in  prison  and 
would  have  reached  the  guillotine,  had  not  Robespiere 
reached  it  first.  He  wanted  to  return  to  America,  was 
afraid  that  the  British  cruisers  might  take  him  off  a 
merchant  ship,  and  had  therefore  asked  that  he  be  per 
mitted  passage  on  board  a  national  vessel.  Jefferson 
wrote  to  him:  — 

"You  expressed  a  wish  to  get  a  passage  to  this  country  in  a 
public  vessel.  Mr.  Dawson  is  charged  with  orders  to  the  captain  of 
the  Maryland  to  receive  and  accommodate  you  with  a  passage  back, 
if  you  can  be  ready  to  depart  at  such  short  warning." 

In  another  part  of  the  letter  he  says:  - 

"I  am  in  hopes  you  will  find  us  returned  generally  to  sentiments 
worthy  of  former  times.  In  these  it  will  be  your  glory  to  have 
steadily  labored,  and  with  as  much  effect  as  any  man  living.  That 
you  may  long  live  to  continue  your  useful  labors,  and  to  reap  their 
reward  in  the  thankfulness  of  nations,  is  my  sincere  prayer." 

Men  who  have  denounced  Mr.  Jefferson  for  thus 
affording  the  asylum  of  a  war  vessel  to  Mr.  Paine, 
because  Paine  was  an  atheist,  as  they  say,  in  almost  the 
next  breath  pronounce  him  to  be  a  man  of  gross  "  timid 
ity"  in  the  face  of  public  opinion,  and  to  be  a  per 
sistent  " demagogue  seeking  popularity"!  The  two 
things  do  not  well  fit  into  one  character.  Jefferson 
must  have  been  the  greatest  fool  in  the  world  if  he  had 
not  known,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  know,  that 
this  letter  to  Paine  and  this  passage  on  a  war  vessel 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  261 

extended  to  him,  would  raise  a  storm  of  popular  dis 
approval,  and  unchain  once  more  the  satanic  fury  of 
the  theologians  and  of  a  great  many  good  people.  Not 
withstanding  it  all,  Jefferson  remembered  Paine' s 
services  to  the  cause  of  liberty  in  America,  and  his 
manly  stand  at  the  risk  of  his  neck  in  France.  Not 
only  that,  but  when  Paine  had  come,  Jefferson  enter 
tained  him  with  Virginian  hospitality  at  Monticello, 
and  this  was  while  the  storm  was  blowing. 

The  degree  to  which  the  New  England  clergy  hated 
Jefferson,  and  the  measure  in  which  he  returned  their 
hate,  coupled  with  some  contempt,  were  extraordinary. 
It  was  no  wonder  they  hated  him.  First,  he  was  of 
the  opposite  party.  Secondly,  there  was  jealousy  of 
the  rule  of  "the  Virginia  Dynasty";  New  England  pride 
was  aroused.  Third,  he  was  not  orthodox  in  religion. 
Fourth,  he  carried  his  lack  of  orthodoxy  in  Virginia  to 
the  point  of  separating  the  church  from  the  state,  the 
church  being  as  yet,  "established"  and  in  the  enjoy 
ment  of  valuable  special  privileges  throughout  all  New 
England,  except  in  Rhode  Island.  Fifth,  his  known 
sympathies  with  the  French  people  constituted  him  a 
"blood-thirsty  Jacobin."  They  neither  asked,  nor 
gave  quarter.  They  had  their  flocks  in  such  condition 
that  when  Jefferson  was  elected  President,  it  produced 
a  sort  of  panic  among  many  good  people. 

John  Fiske  says  that  he  "has  heard  his  grandmother 
tell  how  old  ladies  in  Connecticut,  at  the  news  of  his 
election,  hid  their  family  Bibles,  because  it  was  sup 
posed  that  his  very  first  official  act  —  perhaps  even 
before  announcing  his  cabinet  —  would  be  to  issue  a 
ukase  ordering  all  copies  of  the  sacred  volume  through- 


262      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

out  the  country  to  be  seized  and  burned/'  And  this 
simply  because  Jefferson  was  a  conspicuous  advocate  of 
freedom  of  religion,  or  perhaps  still  more  because  he  had 
disconnected  parsons  from  glebes  and  state  support  — 
much  to  the  improvement  of  true  religion.  He  was,  as 
it  was  the  habit  to  call  men  in  that  day,  a  "freethinker." 
It  is  wonderful  how  many  good,  honest  folk  think  they 
are  thinking  when  they  think  they  think  that  thinking 
freely  is  a  sin,  and  ought  to  be  made  a  crime.  Fiske 
well  adds  that  "when  people  get  into  such  a  state  of 
mind,  the  only  thing  that  can  cure  them  is  an  object 
lesson." 

In  connection  with  the  hatred  of  the  clergy  and 
preachers  generally  for  Mr.  Jefferson,  growing  out  of 
his  disestablishment  of  the  church  in  Virginia,  and  the 
welcome  which  that  measure  had  met  with,  and  the 
imitation  of  it  elsewhere,  it  is  well  for  the  student  to 
remember  that  the  support  of  public  worship  was  com 
pulsory  in  Massachusetts,  except  in  a  few  exempt  cities, 
as  late  as  the  year  1833.  We  are  apt  to  forget  facts 
like  this  now,  and  to  forget  that  Dr.  Childs,  of  Berk 
shire  County,  attempted  unsuccessfully  in  the  Massa 
chusetts  Convention  of  1820  to  free  himself,  and  others, 
of  this  unjust  burden.  Some  honest  people  denounced 
Jefferson,  as  "an  atheist,"  because  he  was  a  Unitarian, 
or  rather  because  —  not  being  orthodox  —  he  might 
be  anything.  Being  God's  vice-gerents  in  this  world, 
they  proceeded  to  destroy  God's  enemy,  and  especially 
this  Philistine  and  Amalekite.  They  did  not  stop  with 
attacking  his  political  and  religious  views.  They  lent 
ears  of  easy  credulity  to  every  charge,  rumor,  or  insinu 
ation  against  his  private  character.  They  preached 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  263 

from  the  pulpit  that  he  was  an  adulterer,  a  miscegenist, 
a  demagogue,  a  liar,  a  hypocrite,  and  a  coward.  Not 
withstanding  all  this,  New  England,  little  by  little, 
slipped  from  under  their  control.  A  broad,  tolerant, 
and  free  administration,  a  "wise  and  frugal  govern 
ment,"  little  by  little,  sapped  the  strength  of  New 
England  Federalists,  whose  natural  leaders  were  the 
clergy.  The  object  lesson  to  which  Fiske  referred  was 
taught  and  learned. 

I  don't  know  whether  Jefferson  was  greatest  as  a 
political  manager,  as  so  many  people  say  and  write,  or 
not,  but  that  he  was  great  in  this  role,  is  undeniable. 
He  won  men  over  and  held  them  not  by  corrupting 
them  with  patronage,  nor  by  tying  them  to  his  ad 
ministration  through  their  monied  interest,  or  class 
interest,  nor  by  extending  to  anybody  any  special  priv 
ileges,  nor  by  any  rod  held  over  them,  but  by  "taking 
things  by  the  smooth  handle,"  while  appealing  to  the 
reason  and  common  sense  of  all.  Thus  he  rendered 
hurtless  the  arrows  of  intolerance  and  hatred  which  fell 
upon  the  shield  of  his  honest  intent.  The  odium 
theologicum  was  itself  partially  disarmed  in  reconcili 
ation  before  his  death. 

James  Parton  in  his  article  entitled  "Jefferson  a 
Reformer  of  old  Virginia,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
of  July,  1872,  says:- 

"We  have  come  now  to  regard  liberty  of  belief  very  much  as  we 
do  liberty  of  breathing  —  as  a  right  too  natural,  too  obvious,  to 
be  called  in  question  —  forgetting  all  the  ages  of  effort  and  of 
anguish  which  it  cost  to  rescue  the  human  mind  from  the  domination 
of  its  natural  foes." 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  are  not  apt  to  estimate 


264     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

at  its  full  value  Jefferson's  efforts,  and  his  final  triumph 
in  obtaining  the  enactment  of  the  Virginia  statute  of 
Religious  Freedom.  "No  man  ever  more  effectively 
put  the  case  in  favor  of  freedom  of  worship  and  freedom 
of  opinion."  "Logic,  irony,  good-natured  appeal,  were 
all  combined."  The  reader  will  find  a  good  deal  of  it 
in  the  "Notes  on  Virginia,"  being  a  recital  for  the  world 
of  the  arguments  that  had  been  used  so  effectively  in 
the  Virginia  Assembly. 

Jefferson  later  followed  up  the  work  in  this  cause 
performed  in  his  State,  by  insisting  that  the  United 
States  Constitution  should  be  amended  by  the  inclusion 
of  a  bill  of  rights,  and  as  a  part  of  it,  a  clause  forever 
debarring  the  Federal  Government  from  the  establish 
ment  of  a  religion.  In  the  western  States  the  Virginia 
example  of  a  complete  separation  of  church  and  state, 
like  most  Jeffersonian  examples,  was  universally  and 
at  once  followed. 

Jefferson's  definition  of  a  church  is  interesting:  — 

"A  voluntary  society  of  men,  joining  themselves  together  of 
their  own  accord,  in  order  to  the  public  worshiping  of  God,  in  such 
a  manner  as  they  judge  acceptable  to  Him,  and  effectual  to  the 
salvation  of  their  souls.  It  is  voluntary  because  no  man  by  nature 
is  bound  to  any  church.  The  hope  of  salvation  is  the  cause  of  his 
entering  into  it.  If  he  finds  anything  wrong  in  it,  he  should  be  as 
free  to  go  out,  as  he  was  to  come  in." 

Upon  the  subject  of  the  separation  of  church  and 
state,  he  said:  — 

"The  people  have  not  given  the  magistrates  the  care  of  their 
souls,  because  they  could  not.  They  could  not  because  no  man  has 
the  right  to  abandon  the  care  of  his  salvation  to  another.  The  opinions 
of  men  on  religion  are  not  the  subject  of  civil  government,  nor 
under  its  jurisdiction." 


ON  FREEDOM  OF  RELIGION  265 

During  his  stay  in  Paris  his  " Notes  on  Virginia" 
were  published  —  a  pirated  edition.  Parton  says: 
"  Saturated  as  the  book  was  with  the  republican  senti 
ment  of  which  he  was  the  completest  living  exponent, 
it  was  eagerly  sought  after  in  Paris,  and  had  its  effect 
upon  the  time/ '  "In  France,  too,  during  his  stay  there, 
his  'Act  for  Freedom  of  Religion'  was  printed,  this 
time  at  his  own  instance." 

Instead  of  the  old  laws  against  witchcraft  —  which 
had  existed  not  in  New  England  alone,  as  some  people 
from  the  way  they  talk  seem  to  think,  but  also  in 
old  England  and  in  Virginia  —  Jefferson  substituted  this 
in  Virginia :  — 

"All  attempts  to  delude  the  people,  or  to  abuse  their  under 
standing  by  the  pretended  arts  of  withcrafts,  conjuration,  enchant 
ments,  or  sorcery,  or  by  pretended  prophecies,  shall  be  punished 
by  ducking  or  whipping,  at  the  discretion  of.  a  jury,  not  exceeding 
fifteen  stripes." 

In  other  words,  instead  of  punishing  anybody  for 
being  a  witch,  the  punishment  was  meted  out  to  those 
who  pretended  to  be  witches!  Thus  anybody  in  Vir 
ginia  to  be  innocent  of  witchcraft  had  only  to  deny  his 
"witchs/wp,"  and  to  be  guilty  must  be  liar  and  fraud 
enough  "to  pretend  witchcraft!"  To  wipe  out  a 
superstition  by  a  piece  of  legal  irony  like  that,  ap 
proaches  humor,  though  Jefferson's  was  not  a  humorous 
character. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE  ON  OUR  EDUCATIONAL 
INSTITUTIONS 

To  George  Wythe  Mr.  Jefferson  wrote,  in  August, 
'  1786:  — 

" Preach,  my  dear  sir,  a  crusade  against  ignorance;  establish  and 
improve  the  law  for  educating  the  common  people.  Let  our  country 
men  know  that  the  people  alone  can  protect  us  against  these  evils: 
and  that  the  tax  which  will  be  paid  for  this  purpose  is  not  more  than 
the  thousandth  part  of  what  will  be  paid  to  kings,  priests,  and 
nobles,  who  will  rise  up  among  us,  if  we  leave  the  people  in  ignorance." 

I  quote  this  because  it  is  a  keynote  expression  of  the 
Jeffersonian  doctrine  that  democracy  and  education 
are  interdependent  and  that  from  their  blissful  marriage 
proceeds  "the  happiness  and  freedom  of  man." 

Harvard  University  had  conferred  on  Mr.  Jefferson, 
while  in  France,  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  In  his 
letter  of  acceptance,  addressed  to  Dr.  Willard,  this 
everlasting  educational  basis  for  all  his  theories  appears 
again.  He  says:  "We  have  spent  the  prime  of  our  lives 
in  procuring  for  them  [that  is,  the  young  men  of  the 
country  —  the  students  at  the  colleges]  the  precious 
blessing  of  liberty.  Let  them  spend  theirs  in  showing 
that  it  is  the  great  parent  of  science  and  virtue;  and 
that  a  nation  will  be  great  in  both,  always  in  proportion 
as  it  is  free." 

Dr.  James  C.  Carter  truthfully  says  that  "Jefferson  s 
educational  scheme  was  part  of  his  political  phi- 

266 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  267 

losophy,"  being  aidful  to  man's  self-government  and 
indispensable  to  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  mankind, 
because  he  believed  that  no  nation  or  community  "  could 
permanently  retain  this  blessing  [of  liberty]  without  the 
benefit  of  the  lessons  of  truth."^) 
__  Jefferson  stated  the  objects  of  primary  education 
as  he  understood  them,  with  a  comprehension  and  just 
appreciation  unexcelled:  — 

1.  "To  give  to  every  citizen  the  information  he  needs  to  transact 
his  own  business. 

2.  "To  enable  him  to  calculate  for  himself  and  to  express  and 
preserve  his  ideas,  contracts  and  accounts  in  writing. 

3.  "To  improve,  by  reading,  his  faculties  and  morals. 

4.  "To  understand  his  duties  to  his  neighbors  and  his  country, 
and  to  discharge  with  competence  the  functions  confided  to  him 
by  either. 

5.  "  To  know  his  rights;  to  exercise  with  order  and  justice  those 
he  retains;  to  choose  with  discretion  the  fiduciary  of  those  he  delegates, 
and  to  notice  their  conduct  with  diligence,  candor  and  judgment. 

6.  "And,  in  general,  to  observe  with  intelligence  and  faithfulness 
all  the  social  relations  under  which  he  shall  be  placed."__A 

Dr.  Carter  said  of  this  statement,  that  it  "ought 
to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold  and  hung  in  every 
primary  school  throughout  the  land  and  be  known  by 
heart  to  every  teacher  and  child. " 
/  As  early  as  1778,  while  we  were  still  in  the  throes  of 
revolutionary  travail,  Jefferson  presented  to  the  Legis 
lature  of  his  native  State  a  bill  outlining  the  scope  and 
establishing  the  means  of  inaugurating  common  schools, 
grammar  schools  and  a  State  university.  From  that 
time  on,  no  matter  where  he  was,  no  matter  how 
much  occupied  with  public  duties,  his  mind  was  con 
tinuously  recurring  to  that  scheme,  and  in  a  letter 


268      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

dated  June  4,  1786,  addressed  to  General  Washington, 
Jefferson  expressed  the  opinion,  that,  "  nothing  but  the 
extreme  distress  of  our  resources"  prevented  that 
scheme  from  being  carried  into  execution,  "even  during 
the  war." 

Nor  were  his  views  of  education  narrow.  The  chief 
end  in  his  mind  was  to  equip  for  citizenship  —  practical 
and  utilitarian  here,  as  always  —  but  the  scope  of  the 
preparation  that  he  would  make  for  citizenship  included 
learning  of  almost  every  sort.  | 

Throughout  his  whole  life  he  was  singularly  neglect 
ful,  if  not  defiant,  of  authority.  This  enabled  him  to 
see  the  folly  of  the  old  four  class  system  • —  Freshman, 
Sophomore,  Junior  and  Senior  —  and  substitute  for  it 
separate,  independent  and  yet  interlocked  schools,  each 
specializing  in  a  given  subject.  He  saw  no  reason,  for 
example,  why  a  man,  who  wanted  to  study  civil  engi 
neering,  should  be  first  forced  to  show  a  certain  degree 
of  proficiency  in  Latin,  or  Greek,  and  he  saw,  as  most 
men  now  do  and  few  then  did,  that,  although  the  classics 
were  a  beautiful  study,  refining  the  taste  and  improving 
the  intellect,  there  was  still  no  reason  why  they  should 
so  nearly  monopolize  the  field  of  education. 

Returning  to  the  report  of  the  Law  Revisers;  it 
contained  a  general  plan  of  education  for  the  State 
constituted  of  three  bills  drawn  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  one 
entitled,  "For  the  more  general  Diffusion  of  Knowledge, 
by  establishing  Common  Schools  and  Grammar 
Schools;"  the  second,  "For  Amending  the  Consti 
tution  of  William  and  Mary  College  and  Substituting 
more  certain  Revenues  for  its  Support:"  and  the  third, 
"For  establishing  a  Public  Library." 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  269 

The  preamble  of  the  bill  to  establish  Common  and 
Grammar  Schools  goes  upon  the  ground  that  it  is  not 
only  the  right,  but  the  duty,  of  a  State  to  make  proper 
provision  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  the 
commonwealth.  Each  county  was  to  have  three 
officers  called  "  aldermen ";  to  be  divided  into  "  hun 
dreds";  in  each  "  hundred "  there  was  to  be  a  military 
company  and  a  school.  It  was  made  the  duty  of  the 
inhabitants  of  each  "  hundred "  to  erect  and  repair 
suitable  schoolhouses.  In  these  all  children  were 
entitled  to  receive  tuition  free  for  three  years,  and  were 
entitled  to  attend  the  school  as  much  longer  thereafter 
as  they  chose,  provided  their  parents  paid  for  their 
attendance.  The  subjects  taught  were  to  be  the 
"three  Us"  —  reading,  writing  and  common  arith 
metic  ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  Jefferson  that  when  he 
came  to  the  subject  of  reading,  he  provided  that  the 
books  to  be  read  were  to  be  such  "as  would  at  the  same 
time  make  them  acquainted  with  Grecian,  Roman, 
English  and  American  history."  The  wise  old  fox 
knew  that  Virginia  was  not  yet  up  to  the  mark  of 
taxing  the  rich  planters  to  teach  history  free  to  the 
children  of  the  poor,  if  indeed  she  were  up  to  the  mark 
of  taxing  them  to  teach  anything  free.  But  history, 
next  to  mathematics  and  natural  science,  was  his  own 
favorite  study.  It  was  moreover,  in  his  opinion,  the 
most  useful  of  all  studies  to  free  citizens  under  a  popular 
government. 

Every  ten  schools  were  to  have  over  them  an  "over 
seer,"  who,  in  Jefferson's  words,  was  to  be  "eminent 
for  his  learning,  integrity  and  fidelity  to  the  Common 
wealth."  I  don't  suppose  that  anybody  but  Jefferson 


270      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

would  have  thought  of  testing  a  teacher's  fitness  by 
his  "  fidelity  to  the  Commonwealth,"  but  he  was  right, 
in  a  broad  way.  This  overseer  had  the  power  of 
appointment  and  removal  of  teachers. 

Next  comes  his  provision  for  Grammar  or  Central 
Schools.  The  State  was  to  be  divided  into  twenty 
districts,  and  the  Board  of  Overseers,  constituted  of 
all  the  overseers  of  all  the  counties  contained  in  each 
district,  was  to  procure  a  hundred  acres  of  land,  situated 
as  nearly  as  practicable  in  the  center  of  the  district, 
upon  which  were  to  be  erected  buildings  of  stone  or 
brick,  for  the  central  academy  or  grammar  school. 
These  buildings  were  to  contain  at  least  a  school  room, 
a  dining  room,  four  rooms  for  master  and  usher,  and 
ten  or  twelve  lodging  rooms.  To  these  schools  were 
to  be  admitted  for  free  tuition  and  free  board  the 
brightest  pupils  of  the  common  schools,  as  shown  by 
their  records,  thus  "  carrying  the  talents  of  the  State 
up  by  a  process  of  selection,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest"  schools,  because  there  was  also  a  provision 
made  by  Jefferson  for  carrying  the  brightest  of  each 
grammar  or  central  academy  school  boys,  as  shown  by 
their  records,  up  to  the  State  University;  all  this 
"selected  talent,"  as  it  was  thus  " carried  up,"  being 
educated  and  boarded  gratis.  In  these  grammar 
schools,  or  central  academies,  were  to  be  taught 
Latin,  Greek,  English,  English  Grammar,  history, 
geography,  and  the  higher  mathematics. 

Each  overseer,  in  obedience  to  this  theory  of  "selec 
tion  of  talents,"  was  to  act  "after  the  most  diligent  and 
impartial  examination  and  inquiry,"  under  oath,  and 
"without  favor  or  affection."  At  the  end  of  each  year 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  271 

the  Visitors  were  to  cull  out  one-third  of  the  least 
promising  of  these  common-school-selected  pupils  and 
discontinue  their  free  board  and  tuition  at  the  grammar 
school.  At  the  end  of  the  second  year  of  free  board  and 
tuition  at  the  grammar  school,  all  of  them  thus  sent 
up  were  to  be  discontinued,  except  one  from  each 
grammar  school  district,  who  was  to  be  the  one  of  the 
greatest  merit,  who  was  permitted  to  remain  four  years 
longer,  and  after  that,  if  he  passed,  he  was  to  be  deemed 
a  "  senior."  Now  from  these  seniors,  thus  arrived  at 
by  process  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest  and  extinction  of 
the  unfit,"  the  Visitors  were  each  year  to  select  one 
and  send  him  with  free  board  and  tuition  to  the  State 
University. 

2.  "The   Bill   for   Amending   the   Constitution   of 
William   and  Mary   College   and   Substituting  more 
certain  Revenues  for  its  Support,"  that  is,  making  it  a 
State  University,  first  and  cardinally,  did  away  with 
religious  tests  for  professors  and  students.     Because  of 
this  it  was  never  enacted.     Church  influence  at  William 
and  Mary  was  too  strong.    It  was  by  its  charter  a 
Church  of  England  School,  and  inclination  ran  with  the 
provisions  of  the  charter  to  prevent  the  abolition  of  reli 
gious  tests  for  teachers  and  even  for  pupils.    Thus 
William  and  Mary  missed  being  the  State  University. 

3.  His  Bill  for  establishing  a  Public  Library  appro 
priated  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  to  purchase  books 
and  maps.     It  failed  at  that  time,  but  a  similar  law, 
based  on  it,  passed  in  1822-1823. 

Girls  as  well  as  boys  were  to  be  admitted  to  Jeffer 
son's  common  schools.  In  this  Henry  G.  Boutelle  says 
that  he  was  "ten  years  ahead  of  Boston." 


272      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

/    Never  surrendering  an  idea,  Jefferson  began  to  work 
"on  the  project  of  a  State  University  elsewhere  than  at 
William  and  Mary,  with  these  cardinal,  and  at  that 
time,  for  the  most  part,  novel  features:  — 

"Freedom  of  teaching  in  independent  elective  schools  —  by  Pro 
fessor's  Lectures. 

"Freedom  of  Study  —  Student  selects  his  'ticket/ 

"The  Honor  System  —  No  espionage  —  Freedom  of  conduct  under 
obligation  of  observing  the  laws  of  the  State  and  the  United 
States. 

"Proficiency  in  intermediate  and  final  examinations  —  not  class 
attendance,  not  daily  examinations,  nor  time  spent,  nor  degrees 
attained  elsewhere  —  brought  degrees,  at  Jefferson's  University. 

"No  gradations  in  a  degree  —  all  cum  laude  or  none,  (80%-75% 
necessary  to  pass). 

"  No  honorary  degrees. 

"  Degrees  to  bear  English,  not  Latin  names  —  Master  of  Arts  etc. 

"  No  rewards  —  no  college  honors  —  except  a  certificate  of  having 
passed  examination  in  the  'school,'  or  a  number  of  examinations 
in  a  number  of  schools,  entitling  to  a  prescribed  degree. 

"No  compulsory  attendance  on  prayers  or  service.  Each  denomi 
nation  to  send  a  clergyman  for  two  years,  who  conducts  daily 
prayers  and  Sunday  service."  (They  are  well  attended  and  the 
preacher  is  paid  by  voluntary  contributions  of  students.) 

All  of  which  were  later  engrafted  on  the  University 
of  Virginia  at  Charlottesville. 

Jefferson  was  a  stickler  for  educating  women,  but 
not  precisely  as  men.  His  general  principles  were:  — 

1st.  "A  solid  education  to  enable  them  to  educate  their  own 
daughters. 

"  Dancing, 

2nd.    "Then  special  studies- 

B  Household  economy ." 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  273 

Jefferson  held  that  the  chief  use  of  education  was  to 
fit  a  man  for  citizenship.  Hence  the  common  school, 
and,  to  some  extent,  the  grammar  school  —  the  edu 
cation  of  the  masses  —  was  (because  they  are  all  one) 
the  backbone  of  his  system,  but  he  was  just  as  fixed  in 
his  opinion,  that  there  ought  to  be  also  a  University 
school  for  the  people  —  a  State  University.  The 
permanent  influence  of  Mr.  Jefferson  upon  public 
institutions  has  nowhere  been  more  pronounced  or 
more  beneficial  than  in  this.  His  idea  was  taken  up  by 
his  disciples  in  Michigan  and  a  State  University  school 
for  the  people  established  there,  even  before  Jeffer 
son  had  succeeded  in  consummating  his  plans  in  Vir 
ginia. 

Judge  A.  B.  Woodward,  his  friend,  whom  he  had 
appointed  Chief  Justice  of  Michigan  Territory,  created 
a  university  in  the  wilderness  on  Jefferson's  plan,  before 
Jefferson  could  open  the  University  of  Virginia;  no 
religious  creed  to  be  taught  —  professors  to  hold  posi 
tions  for  ten  years  —  a  Jesuit  priest  and  a  Presby 
terian  minister  working  together  in  the  faculty  —  the 
beginning  of  our  priceless  heritage  of  universities  free 
from  shackles  on  thought. 

E.  P.  Powell  says  of  this  Michigan  University: — 

"It  was  Jeffersonianism  worked  out  to  a  finish."1 
"The  fact  of  forty  State  universities.  .  .  each  ambitious  to  excel, 
and  becoming  more  completely  every  year  the  head  and  centre  of 
a  complete  state  system,  is  one  of  the  grandest  features  of  Amer 
ican  institutional  development."2 

1  "Jefferson  and  Hamilton  in  our  Education,"  New  England  Maga 
zine,  1896,  n.  s.,  Vol.  14,  page  702. 

2  Same,  page  703. 
19 


274      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Powell  adds:  — 

"This  we  owe  to  that  master  mind  that  stood  beside  Washington 
in  the  hour  of  the  nation's  birth  .  .  .  the  brilliant  imagination 
that  foresaw  the  moral  and  intellectual  needs  of  a  vast  republic, 
as  well  as  its  political  needs." 

A  university's  purpose,  according  to  Jefferson's 
notion,  was  "to  make  men  fit  to  be  wise  citizens,"  and 
to  equip  able  statesmen,  or  men  able  to  select  states 
men —  "to  train  men  to  be  judges,  legislators,  diplo 
mats,  farmers,  scientists,  teachers,  manufacturers"  — 
in  other  words,  successful  laborers  in  the  vineyard  of 
human  progress. 

Then  add  Jefferson's  idea  of  Theological  Seminaries 
near  by,  erected  and  paid  for  by  the  churches,  and 
enjoying  the  benefit  of  the  tuition  of  the  university 
schools,  and  their  pupils  meeting  in  these  schools,  so 
as  to  wear  away  sectarian  prejudices,  all  emulating  one 
another  in  the  conception  and  practice  of  true  Christian 
and  unsectarian  morals.  The  churches  never  availed 
themselves  of  this  privilege. 

It  is  too  long  to  quote  in  detail,  but  I  refer  the  student 
to  Jefferson's  report  of  June  6,  1818,  drawn  by  him  and 
signed  not  only  by  him,  but  by  Madison  and  Monroe 
and  Cabell,  upon  the  establishment  of  a  State  Uni 
versity.  It  is  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  interesting  of 
his  state  papers.  This  much  of  it  I  will  quote :  — 

"By  a  bill  of  the  last  session,  passed  by  one  branch,  and  printed 
by  the  other  for  public  consideration,  a  disposition  appears  to  go 
into  a  system  of  general  education,  of  which  a  single  University  for 
the  use  of  the  whole  State  is  to  be  a  component  part.  A  purpose  so 
auspicious  to  the  future  destinies  of  our  country,  which  would 
bring  such  a  mass  of  mind  into  activity  for  its  welfare,  cannot  be 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  275 

contemplated  without  kindling  the  warmest  affection  for  the  land 
of  our  birth,  with  an  animating  prospect  into  its  future  history. 
Well  directed  education  improves  the  morals,  enlarges  the  minds, 
enlightens  the  councils,  instructs  the  industry,  and  advances  the 
power,  the  prosperity  and  the  happiness  of  the  nation." 

He  was  no  orator,  but  here,  as  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  in  the  First  Inaugural  Address,  he 
is  eloquent.  As  a  result  of  this  report  a  bill  was  passed, 
which  gave  authority  for  the  foundation  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Virginia,  whereunder  Jefferson  and  some 
others,  including  Madison,  were  appointed  members  of 
a  commission  to  determine  upon  a  suitable  place  for  it. 
Mr.  Jefferson's  report  to  the  Legislature,  as  Chairman 
of  this  commission,  is  one  of  his  greatest  state  docu 
ments.  In  it  he  undertook  to  delineate  the  work  of 
the  lower  schools  —  common  schools  —  and  that  of  the 
grammar  schools  and  colleges,  which  were  to  be  "  insti 
tutions  intermediate  between  primary  schools  and  the 
University/'  and  of  the  University  itself. 

Upon  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Visitors  constituted 
by  the  Act,  under  the  authority  reposed  in  them,  they 
selected  Thomas  Jefferson  as  Rector  of  the  University. 
From  that  time  on  the  University  became  his  pet  and 
almost  the  complete  monopolist  of  his  time  and  at 
tention. 

It  has  been  said  that  Jefferson  had  no  imagination. 
If  it  be  meant  by  this  that  he  had  none  of  the  romantic 
tinge,  it  is  perhaps  true,  but  he  had  constructive 
imagination  of  the  highest  order.  He  planned,  not 
for  what  was  then  needed,  but  for  a  greater  future  than 
his  or  any  other  University  in  America  has  yet  enjoyed, 
although  the  work  of  his  own  has  been  of  the  most 


276      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

thorough  and  the  most  useful  sort.  He  said,  in  a 
report  of  November  29,  1821,  to  the  Directors  of  the 
Literary  Fund:  — 

"We  had,  therefore,  no  supplementary  guide  but  our  own  judg 
ments,  which  we  have  exercised  conscientiously,  in  adopting  a  scale 
and  style  of  building,  believed  to  be  proportioned  to  the  respect 
ability,  the  means,  and  the  wants  of  our  country,  and  such  as  may  be 
approved  in  any  future  condition  it  may  attain.  We  owed  it  to  it 
to  do,  not  what  was  to  perish  with  ourselves,  but  what  would  remain, 
to  be  respected  and  preserved  through  other  ages,  and  we  fondly 
hope  that  the  instruction  which  may  flow  from  this  institution, 
kindly  cherished,  by  advancing  the  minds  of  our  youth  with  the 
growing  science  of  the  times,  and  elevating  the  views  of  our  citizens 
generally,  to  the  practice  of  the  social  duties  and  functions  of  self- 
government,  may  ensure  to  our  country  the  reputation,  the  safety 
and  prosperity,  and  all  the  other  blessings,  which  experience  proves 
to  result  from  the  cultivation  and  improvement  of  the  mind;  and, 
without  going  into  the  monitory  history  of  the  ancient  world, 
in  all  its  quarters,  and  at  all  its  periods,  that  of  the  soil  on  which  we 
live,  and  of  its  occupants,  indigenous  and  immigrant,  teaches  the 
awful  lesson,  that  no  nation  is  permitted  to  live  in  ignorance  with 
impunity." 

It  has  been  urged  by  some  critics  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
had  the  idea  of  a  university  only  for  a  State,  while 
Washington's  " grander  conception"  had  gone  to  a 
national  university.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who 
believe  that  a  great  national  university,  overshadowing 
the  State  universities,  is  the  best  in  the  long  run  for 
the  country.  I  think  that  each  State  of  this  Union, 
as  it  becomes  more  densely  settled,  will  have  sufficient 
means  readily  to  furnish  its  citizens  with  a  great  uni 
versity,  equal  to  anything  in  Europe,  in  its  scope,  its 
thoroughness,  its  teaching  faculty,  its  apparatus,  and 
its  architecture,  and  that  the  establishment  of  a 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  277 

great  national  university  would  discourage  the  growth 
towards  perfection  of  the  State  institutions.  But,  as 
it  happens,  this  opinion  of  mine  Mr.  Jefferson  did  not 
share,  thus,  as  usual,  putting  his  critics  to  shame  — 
for,  in  his  sixth  annual  message  to  Congress,  he  urged 
the  foundation  of  a  university  at  Washington,  saying, 
in  answer  to  obvious  arguments  of  the  old  school 
against  it:  "A  public  institution  can  alone  supply  those 
sciences  which,  though  rarely  called  for,  are  yet  neces 
sary  to  complete  the  circle,  all  the  parts  of  which  con 
tribute  to  the  improvement  of  the  country,  and  some 
of  them  to  its  preservation." 

I  believe  that  the  Federal  Government  has  taken 
-  over  so  many  things  that  it  has  resulted  in  the  States 
waiting  on  it  for  nearly  everything.  If  the  dreams  of 
Washington  and  Jefferson  had  been  realized  early  in 
our  history,  the  great  and  splendidly  conducted  State 
universities,  now  within  easy  reach  of  nearly  every 
citizen's  boy,  would  never  have  been  born,  and  the 
older  privately  endowed  institutions,  like  Harvard, 
and  Yale,  and  Princeton,  and  King's  or  Columbia, 
already  born,  would  have  lagged  behind  in  the  race, 
overshadowed  and  becoming  more  and  more  compara 
tively  incompetent  to  aid  in  the  great  higher  educational 
work  of  the  land,  and  possessing  from  generation  to 
generation  less  and  less  the  confidence  of  the  student 
body  and  the  faculty  body  of  the  Union. 

In  Jefferson's  educational  report,  written  from  Fish 
Gap  Inn,  August  1,  1818,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  there  are  some  things  the  reading  of  which 
may  or  may  not  tire  your  patience,  but  they  are  so 
sound,  so  full  of  common  sense,  so  far  from  doctrin- 


278      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

airism,  of  which  take-things-on-trust  writers  always 
accuse  him,  that  I  shall  adventure  it:  — 

"And  this  brings  us  to  the  point  at  which  are  to  commence  the 
higher  branches  of  education,  of  which  the  Legislature  requires  the 
development;  those  for  example,  which  are: — 

"(1)  To  form  the  statesmen,  legislators  and  judges,  on  whom 
public  prosperity  and  individual  happiness  are  so  much  to  depend; 

"(2)  To  expound  the  principles  and  structure  of  government, 
the  laws  which  regulate  the  intercourse  of  nations,  those  formed 
municipally  for  our  own  government,  and  a  sound  spirit  of  legisla 
tion,  which,  banishing  all  arbitrary  and  unnecessary  restraint  on 
individual  action,  shall  leave  us  free  to  do  whatever  does  not  violate 
the  equal  rights  of  another; 

"(3)  To  harmonize  and  promote  the  interests  of  agriculture, 
manufactures  and  commerce,  and  by  well-informed  views  of  politcal 
economy,  to  give  a  free  scope  to  the  public  industry; 

"(4)  To  develop  the  reasoning  faculties  of  our  youth,  enlarge 
their  minds,  cultivate  their  morals,  and  instill  into  them  the  pre 
cepts  of  virtue  and  order; 

"  (5)  To  enlighten  them  with  mathematical  and  physical  sciences, 
which  advance  the  arts,  and  administer  to  the  health,  the  subsistence, 
and  the  comforts  of  human  life; 

"And,  generally,  to  form  them  to  habits  of  reflection  and  cor 
rect  action,  rendering  them  examples  of  virtue  to  others,  and  of 
happiness  within  themselves. 

"These  are  the  objects  of  that  higher  grade  of  education,  the 
benefits  and  blessings  of  which  the  Legislature  now  proposes  to 
provide  for  the  good  and  ornament  of  their  country,  the  grati 
fication  and  happiness  of  their  fellow-citizens,  of  the  parent  espe 
cially,  and  his  progeny,  on  whom  all  of  his  affections  are  concen 
trated." 

Jefferson's  plan  held  out,  as  we  have  seen,  prizes  in 
each  of  the  grades  of  the  educational  system,  to  an 
honored  place  in  the  next  higher  grade  which  would  be 
not  only  of  material  value  to  those  who  succeeded  in 
obtaining  them,  but  of  mind-training  value  to  those 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  279 

who  unsuccessfully  competed  for  them,  and  perhaps 
of  still  greater  aspiration  value  to  the  general  body  of 
pupils  and  students  as  fixing  an  ideal  educational 
esprit  du  corps. 

In  this  report  of  1818  to  the  Legislature  of  Virginia 
Jefferson,  among  other  things,  says:  - 

"  Education  generates  habits  of  application,  of  order,  of  the 
love  of  virtue,  and  controls  by  the  force  of  habit  any  innate  ob 
liquities  in  our  moral  organization.  We  should  be  far,  too,  from  the 
persuasion  that  man  is  fixed,  by  the  law  of  his  nature,  at  a  given  point; 
that  his  improvement  is  a  chimera,  and  the  hope  delusive  of  render 
ing  himself  wiser,  happier,  or  better  than  our  fore-fathers  were. 
As  well  might  it  be  urged  that  the  wild  and  uncultivated  tree, 
hitherto  yielding  sour  and  bitter  fruit  only,  can  never  be  made  to 
yield  better;  yet  we  know  that  the  grafting  art  implants  a  new  tree 
on  the  savage  stock.  ...  It  cannot  be  but  that  each  generation, 
succeeding  to  the  knowledge  acquired  by  all  those  that  preceded 
it,  adding  to  it  their  own  acquisitions  and  discoveries,  and  handing 
the  mass  down  for  successive  and  constant  accumulation,  must 
advance  the  knowledge  and  well-being  of  mankind,  not  infinitely, 
as  some  have  said,  but  indefinitely,  and  to  a  term  which  no  man  can 
fix  and  foresee." 

A  great  system  of  state-supported  common  schools, 
academies  and  universities,  in  a  government  where  all 
men  are  accounted  equal,  gives  to  the  poor,  as  well  as 
to  the  rich,  the  opportunity  of  developing  their  talents, 
and  does  it  in  institutions  without  class  bias^J  Some 
universities  and  colleges  have  a  spirit  which  would 
subject  man's  mind,  by  limiting  free  range  of  thought, 
and  some  others  resting  upon  private  endowments,  even 
in  our  own  country  to-day,  are  permeated  with  the 
distinct  bias  of  plutocracy.  A  selfish  and  designing 
plutocracy  can  give  Jefferson's  "  kings,  nobles  and 
priests"  of  the  opening  quotation  of  this  chapter  two 


280      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

points  in  every  game  of  three  and  still  nearly  always 
win. 

He  was  happy  in  calling  attention  to  the  fact,  that 
the  benefits  of  colleges  and  universities  are  not  monopo 
lized  by  students  within  their  walls.  Every  man  goes 
out  as  a  practical  teacher  in  that  walk  of  life,  which  he 
is  to  tread  —  to  the  advantage  of  all  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact. 

Jefferson,  throughout  his  whole  life,  was  pretty 
strong  in  preambles  to  bills.  The  preamble  to  his  Bill 
for  the  Better  Diffusion  of  Knowledge,  in  1779,  is  as 
follows:  "And  to  avail  the  Commonwealth  of  those 
talents  and  virtues,  which  nature  has  sown  so  liberally 
among  the  poor  as  the  rich,  and  which  are  lost  to  their 
country  by  the  want  of  means  for  their  cultivation; 
Be  it  further  enacted/7  etc.  Queer  language  for  a 
dry  statute,  but  characteristic  of  Jefferson!  What 
follows,  too,  occurring  in  a  letter  written  to  Dr.  W.  T. 
Barry  on  August  4,  1822,  is  characteristic.  [After 
complimenting  Barry  on  what  had  been  done  in  the 
Legislature  of  Kentucky  for  popular  education,  he 
says:  "A  popular  government,  without  information  or 
the  means  of  acquiring  it,  is  but  a  prologue  to  a  farce 
or  a  tragedy;  or  perhaps  both.  Knowledge  will  forever 
govern  ignorance. "\  Even  the  early  abolitionists  and 
the  doctrinaires  and  the  theorists  of  "reconstruction," 
who  frequently  mistook  Jefferson  for  their  apostle, 
without  fully  understanding  either  him  or  why,  learned 

at  lesson  in  the  course  of  time. 

In  one  of  Jefferson's  letters  to  Adams,  written  in 
1813,  he  speaks  of  an  educational  system  as  "the 
keystone  of  the  arch  of  our  Government." 


r 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  281 

to  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  two  years  afterwards,  he 
wrote: — 

"Were  it  necessary  to  give  up  either  the  Primaries,  or  the 
University,  I  would  rather  abandon  the  last,  because  it  is  safer  to 
have  a  whole  people  respectably  enlightened,  than  a  few  in  a  high 
state  of  science,  and  the  many  in  ignorance.  This  last  is  the  most 
dangerous  state  in  which  a  nation  can  be." 

And  yet  I  heard  a  critic  once  say  that  it  was  "  char 
acteristic  of  the  South  and  Southern  statesmen"  that 
Jefferson  should  have  spent  time  and  wasted  fortune 
in  building  a  university  in  a  State  without  a  compat 
ible  system  of  free  schools,  with  the  idea  that  "  if  a  few 
people  were  highly  cultivated,"  civilization  and  the 
State  would  be  in  the  best  possible  condition! 

As  the  democratic  support,  which  he  had  received 
in  his  great  work  of  making-over  the  American  soul- 
politic,  had  had  its  surest  strength  in  Virginia  and  hi 
Kentucky,  he  never  ceased  to  admonish  all  Virginians 
and  Kentuckians  to  take  up  the  great  work  of  popular 
education,  and  if  they  did  not  heed  his  admonitions 
to  the  extent  to  which  they  ought  to  have  heeded  them, 
it  is  but  another  instance  of  "a  prophet  not  without 
honor  save  in  his  own  country!"  The  great  West 
took  it  up,  "the  country  beyond  the  mountains,"  as 
he  was  fond  of  calling  it,  where  Jefferson  was  beloved 
and  confided  in,  as  perhaps  no  man  of  our  entire 
history  ever  was,  and  in  the  acts  of  their  legislatures 
and  by  the  great  burden  of  taxation  which  they  have 
voluntarily  borne,  they  have  echoed  his  language: 
"No  other  sure  foundation  [than  education]  can  be 
devised  for  the  preservation  of  freedom  and  happi 
ness."  Michigan,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Illinois  and  Indi- 


282      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

ana  were  early  in  the  field;  Michigan,  as  we  have  seen, 
by  the  direct  inspiration  of  Jefferson;  Kentucky,  also, 
under  his  direct  inspiration,  founded  the  Transylvania 
University,  from  which  great  things  were  expected,  but 
which  the  slaveholders'  poverty,  because  of  inefficient 
labor,  and  his  lack  of  sympathy  with  an  educated  com 
mon  people  permitted  much  to  decay  and  languish. 

Jefferson  never  showed  greater  contempt  for  author 
ity  than  in  his  organization  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 
He  not  only  put  modern  languages  upon  an  equal  foot 
ing  with  Latin  and  Greek  and  Applied  Mathematics 
on  a  footing  with  pure  mathematics,  but  he  insisted 
on  teaching  all  applied  sciences.  He  organized  a  uni 
versity  of  separate  and  independent  schools,  where  a 
boy  who  had  a  particular  reason  for  wanting  to  study 
French,  for  instance,  could  study  French  without  having 
to  be  first  examined  in  mathematics  or  something  else, 
and  a  boy  who  wanted  to  fit  himself  to  be  an  Architect 
or  a  Civil  Engineer  could  take  up  the  mathematics 
leading  to  that  profession  and  the  art  itself,  without 
having  to  show  that  he  knew  Latin  or  FrenchjH- 
schools  which  might  be  entered  by  any  one,  provided 
only  he  knew  enough  to  take  up  the  work  in  that  school, 
where  it  began  at  the  University.  Not  only  that,  but 
he  left  each  student  free  —  not  comparatively,  or  in  a 
modified  way  —  but  absolutely  —  to  study  just  what 
he  wanted  to  study,  and  he  buttressed  the  freedom  of 
teaching,  as  it  was  buttressed  in  no  other  institution  — 
each  professor  in  each  school  being  the  judge  of  how  he 
should  teach,  and  teaching  by  lecture.  This  sort  of 
school  was  especially  adapted  to  the  condition  of  the 
South  and  Southwest  at  that  time. 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  283 

It  was  assumed  that  a  boy  fit  to  enter  a  university 
knew  the  importance  of  mastering  his  work,  and  also 
knew  beforehand,  at  that  particular  institution  at  any 
rate,  that,  unless  it  was  thoroughly  mastered,  he  could 
not  possibly  pass  the  only  tests,  two  examinations,  one 
intermediate  of  the  term  called  the  Intermediate  and 
the  other  at  the  end  of  it,  called  the  Final. 

I  once  heard  a  man  say  that  he  who  was  not  master 
of  the  Greek  subjunctive  could  not  possibly  have  his 
mind  trained.  I  never  dispute  with  a  dogmatist,  but 
I  thought  to  myself  that  the  complete  mastery  of  the 
German,  or  even  the  English,  subjunctive  was  a  thing 
"not  to  be  sneezed  at."  In  addition  to  the  fact  that 
Latin  and  Greek  have  been  made  a  fetish  of,  they  have 
been  mistaught.  They  ought  to  be  taught  to  children, 
as  German  and  Italian  are,  from  easy  primers  up,  and 
to  a  large  extent,  objectively  —  conversationally  — 
by  pointing  out  things  with  their  names.  The  fact  is, 
that  in  the  teaching  of  all  languages  some  degree  of 
fluency  in  vocabulary  should  precede  the  acquirement 
of  the  niceties  of  grammar-science. 

To  illustrate:  There  are  many,  doubtless,  among  my 
readers  who  can  read  German  or  French  easily  without 
conscious  translating,  after  having  spent  from  a  half 
to  a  third  as  much  tune  in  acquiring  them  as  was 
spent  in  procuring  a  more  or  less  formal  reading 
acquaintance  with  Latin  and  Greek.  In  fact,  for  a 
while  there  was  a  superstition  to  the  effect  that  civili 
zation  itself  —  that  is,  the  progress  of  culture  —  de 
pended  upon  the  acquirement  of  Latin  and  Greek. 
The  Japanese  have  dissipated  that  idea.  It  is  wonder 
ful  what  a  progress  they  have  made  in  all  the  arts  and 


284      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

sciences  and  languages  of  modern  Europe,  but  they  left 
Latin  and  Greek  out  of  their  curricula,  not  because 
they  were  not  worth  studying,  but  because  the  Japanese 
had  something  else  to  do. 

The  United  States  have  "gone  a  world-powering." 
Under  our  flag  are  Porto  Rico  and  the  thousand  isles 
of  the  Philippine  Archipelago,  and  yet  a  hundred  boys 
probably  are  taught  Latin  in  the  public  schools  of 
America,  where  one  is  taught  Spanish.  No  man  was 
ever  a  greater  stickler  for  the  study  of  the  classics  than 
was  Mr.  Jefferson,  but  he  was  never  superstitious  about 
it,  and  never  had  the  notion  that  an  American  boy 
ought  to  be  prevented  from  studying  other  things 
simply  because  he  had  not  studied  them.  In  his ' '  Notes 
on  Virginia/'  he  says:  "The  learning  Greek  and  Latin 
is  going  into  disuse  in  Europe.  I  know  not  what  their 
manners  and  customs  may  call  for;  but  it  would  be  very 
ill-judged  in  us  to  follow  their  example  in  this  instance." 
"I  do  not  pretend  that  language  is  a  science,"  he  says 
in  addition.  "It  is  only  an  instrument  for  the  attain 
ment  of  science,  but  that  time  is  not  lost  which  is 
employed  in  providing  tools  for  future  operations." 

Jefferson  always  conceived  more  than  he  could  con 
summate.  Back  as  far  as  1779,  he  had  tried  to  have 
chemistry  made  an  independent  branch  at  William  and 
Mary.  This  was  at  a  time  when  Buff  on  thought  that 
chemistry  was  no  more  entitled  to  be  called  a  science 
than  cookery. 

One  of  the  branches  which  Jefferson  thought  the  best 
fitted  for  a  place  in  a  university  school  for  the  people 
was  what  he  called  the  Science  of  Government  — 
political  economy,  and  the  political  history  of  England 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  285 

and  the  United  States,  and  of  Virginia,  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  and  the  Federalist,  etc. 
I  am  not  sure,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  the  idea  of 
establishing  a  school  of  the  Science  of  Government  in 
its  several  branches  had  then  been  broached  by  any 
one.  At  any  rate,  it  is  only  of  late  years  that  such 
schools  have  been  established  in  any  degree  of  complete 
ness  at  all,  including  even  diplomacy  and  the  history 
of  diplomacy,  in  American  universities.  Of  course, 
constitutional  law  and  international  law  were  very 
early  taught  to  those,  who  proposed  to  pursue  the 
legal  profession,  and  in  them  is  to  be  found  much  of 
the  science  of  government.  Some  slight  degree  of 
proficiency  in  such  science  of  political  economy  as  then 
existed  was,  too,  within  the  reach  of  the  American 
student.  Notwithstanding  all  of  Jefferson's  efforts, 
the  University  of  Virginia  has  not  to-day  a  separate 
school  of  the  science  of  government.  There  was  some 
talk  three  or  four  years  ago  about  adding  that  school 
to  the  others,  but  I  believe,  for  some  reason,  the  project 
failed.  It  is  the  noblest  of  all  studies,  and  the  most 
universally  useful  in  a  free  country.  Whatsoever  is 
done  now  in  that  line  of  study  by  the  youth  of  our 
country  —  and  especially  at  Columbia  and  at  Johns 
Hopkins  much  good  work  has  been  done  —  it  must  be 
remembered,  to  Jefferson's  eternal  honor,  that  he  pro 
posed  it  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago;  in  fact,  going 
back  to  his  first  proposal  of  it,  fully  that  long. 

All  through  the  very  many  expressions  occurring  and 
recurring  in  his  letters  and  public  papers  concerning 
education,  is  the  idea  that  its  chief  object  is  to  fit  men 
for  citizenship  and  statesmanship.  No  man  ever 


286      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

realized  more  keenly  than  he  the  interplay  between 
democratic  institutions  and  education,  the  manner  in 
which  each  requires  and  nourishes  the  other.  It  is 
not  only  true  that  free  institutions  cannot  exist  for 
long,  when  based  upon  doing  the  will  of  the  ignorant, 
but  it  is  also  true  that  democratic  institutions  constitute 
the  greatest  encouragement  to  education.  Education 
being  necessary  to  its  success,  a  successful  democracy 
must  provide  it.  The  one,  education,  is  the  firm  base; 
the  other,  democracy,  is  the  beautiful  super-structure. 
They  are  parts  of  one  monument  —  a  monument  dedi 
cated  to  the  indefinite  perfectibility  of  human  insti 
tutions,  and  of  the  human  race. 

Jefferson,  the  theorist!  And  yet,  as  early  as  April, 
1814,  he  had  seized  upon  a  great  idea  —  still  con 
necting  education  and  citizenship  —  which  has  even 
yet  been  adopted  in  only  four  or  five  of  the  American 
States,  my  own,  I  am  proud  to  say,  being  one  of  them. 

In  a  letter  written  to  De  Onis,  then  Spanish  Minister, 
He  said,  concerning  the  Constitution,  which  had  been 
adopted  by  the  liberal  party  in  Spain:  — 

"There  is  one  provision  which  will  immortalize  its  inventors. 
It  is  that  which,  after  a  certain  epoch,  disfranchises  every  citizen 
who  cannot  read  and  write.  This  is  new,  and  it  is  the  fruitful  germ 
of  the  improvement  of  everything  good,  and  the  correction  of  every 
thing  imperfect  in  the  present  constitution.  This  will  give  you  an 
enlightened  people,  and  an  energetic  public  opinion  which  will 
control  and  enchain  the  aristocratic  spirit  of  the  government." 

In  every  country  where  the  aristocracy  rules,  it  rules 
by  the  aid  of  an  ignorant  rabble,  by  military  sub 
jection,  by  purchase  of  votes,  by  intimidation  about 
employment,  by  force  of  the  rabble  being  somehow 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  287 

dependent  upon  it,  or,  by  the  force  of  a  certain  menial 
and  master  affinity  —  like  that  between  the  "nigger" 
and  the  " quality"  —  which  ties  the  rabble  to  the 
aristocracy.  D' Israeli  had  to  some  extent  this  idea 
of  cooperation  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  rabble,  in 
his  mind,  as  have  had  some  of  the  other  so-called 
" Democratic  Tories"  in  Great  Britain.  If  you  can 
cut  off  that  ignorant,  illiterate  rabble  by  confining  the 
suffrage  to  those  at  least,  who  are  sufficiently  enlight 
ened  to  read  and  write,  you  have  to  a  large  extent 
limited  the  scope  of  aristocratic  influence. 

While  we  teach  that  men  must  prepare  themselves 
lor  many  things,  we  leave  them  to  imagine  that  they 
are  natural-born  graduates  in  the  science  of  govern 
ment.  Never  fear  that  in  the  long  run,  democracy  will 
not  find  its  own  errors,  and  will  not  correct  them.  But 
also  never  hope  that  in  the  meantime  there  will  not  be 
much  of  error,  much  of  wrong,  and  some  oppression. 

My  own  impression  is  that  an  educational  qualifica 
tion  for  the  suffrage  would  go  far  to  remove  the  evil  of 
bad  government,  and  that  teaching  every  man  some 
thing  of  the  science  of  government,  and  at  least  so  much 
to  the  informed  as  involves  the  proposition  that  he  is 
a  poor  citizen,  who  does  not  carry  his  information  to 
his  primaries  and  to  the  elections,  would  go  further. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  plain  that  every  species  of  information 
and  of  science  has  been  more  rapidly  advanced,  than 
the  science  of  government  itself. 

This  subject  was  a  sort  of  mania  with  Jefferson. 
Numbers  of  young  men  in  Virginia  were  writing  to  him 
all  the  time  to  know  what  books  to  read,  writing  to 
as  a  sort  of  tutor.  Many  of  them  moved  into 


288      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

Charlottesville,  even  before  the  University  was  opened, 
to  get  the  benefit  of  his  advice  and  library.  He  wrote 
to  Kosciuszko  concerning  them  in  this  language:  — 

"In  advising  the  course  of  their  reading,  I  endeavor  to  keep 
their  attention  fixed  on  the  main  objects  of  all  science,  the  freedom 
and  happiness  of  men.  So  that,  coming  to  bear  a  share  in  the  councils 
and  government  of  their  country,  they  will  keep  ever  in  view  the 
sole  objects  of  all  legitimate  government." 

He  never  had  the  happiness  of  reading  Tennyson,  but 
he  understood  fully  the  theory  and  hope  of  men  rising 
"on  stepping-stones  of  their  dead  selves  to  higher 
things,"  and,  although  he  never  expressed  it  in  that  way, 
he  would  have  been  charmed  with  Tennyson's  expres 
sion  of  the  idea,  that  the  final  and  highest  goal  and  hope 
for  all  is  "in  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the 
world,"  and  that  man's  nearest  approach  to  perfecti 
bility  will  be  when  among  an  informed  people  "the 
common  sense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful  realm  in 
awe."  "The  common  sense  of  most"  is  an  expression 
that  would  have  tickled  his  very  heart,  and  I  sometimes 
wonder  why  he  never  thought  of  it.  I  sometimes 
wonder,  too,  how  much,  if  anything,  of  the  idealist 
poet's  thoughts  were  due  to  Thomas  Jefferson.  Con 
sciously,  I  imagine,  very  little  —  unconsciously,  and 
by  world-kinship-infiltration,  I  suspect,  a  good  deal. 
However  that  may  be,  there  is  much  in  common 
between  what  may  be  called  the  political  and  social 
philosophy  of  Locksley  Hall  and  the  ideas  of  Jefferson. 

One  of  the  curious  reasons  that  Jefferson  gives  in 
recommending  especially  the  study  of  history  is  that  it 
"will  enable  them  [that  is,  the  people]  to  know 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  289 

ambition  under  every  guise  it  may  assume;  and  know 
ing  it,  to  defeat  its  views/j 

Ambitious  and  self -seeking  men  are  such  chameleons, 
and  succeeding  periods  and  conditions  differ  so  much 
from  those  that  have  gone  before,  that  it  would  be 
curious  to  examine  how  far  familiarity  with  the  methods 
of  the  old  enemies  of  liberty  would  teach  the  people 
the  designs  of  the  new. 

It  is  pathetic  to  note  the  broad  scope  of  Jefferson's 
ideas,  as  in  the  letter  to  Peter  Carr,  during  the  Revo 
lution,  when  compared  with  what  the  Legislature  and 
the  people  of  the  State  of  Virginia  could  be  prevailed 
upon,  or  were  able,  actually  to  do.  He  speaks  of  teach 
ing  not  only  the  Science  of  Government,  to  which  I  have 
referred,  but  agriculture,  horticulture,  veterinary  sci 
ence,  and  electricity,  about  which  almost  nothing  was 
known  in  his  day,  and  meteorology,  a  science  of  which 
it  may  be  said  that  it  is  not  yet  full  born,  and,  finally, 
galvanism  and  magnetism,  concerning  which  the  same 
statement  may  even  yet  be  made.  Even  at  that  early 
date,  he  suggested  a  scheme  for  night  schools,  where 
lectures  should  be  given  to  those,  whose  daily  occu 
pations  did  not  permit  them  to  use  daylight  time.'  I 
have  no  knowledge  whether  any  of  the  founders  of  any 
of  these  most  useful  institutions  ever  got  inspiration 
from  him,  but  I  know  that  he  preceded  them  all  in 
America  by  from  a  quarter  to  a  half  a  century,  and  that 
if  they  had  read  him,  it  would  have  been  a  helpful  and 
sympathetic  reading. 

After  much  reading  of  Jefferson,  I  cannot  escape  the 
idea  that  he  frequently  wrote  with  the  conviction  that 
every  word  he  put  on  paper  would  some  day  come  to 
20 


290      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

be  read,  not  in  Virginia  alone,  but  far  outside  of  her 
limits.  I  cannot  account  for  many  utterances,  except 
upon  "the  sowing  the  seed  by  the  wayside"  theory. 
A  thought  with  him  was  a  seed  to  grow,  a  germ  to 
infect,  "a  little  leaven  to  leaven  the  whole  lump," 
after  the  fermentation  of  its  kind. 

Jefferson  attached  a  school  of  agriculture  to  his 
scheme  of  the  University,  and  explained  how  many  of 
the  things  to  be  taught  in  the  other  schools,  like  chem 
istry,  and  botany,  and  zoology,  etc.,  would  naturally 
interlink  themselves  with  the  study  of  agriculture; 
like  chemistry,  for  example,  becoming  agricultural 
chemistry,  etc.  Most  of  our  States,  upon  receiving 
Federal  aid  for  agricultural  schools,  have  founded 
separate  institutions,  duplicating  much  of  the  work 
done  at  the  State  universities,  and  duplicating,  to  a 
great  degree,  the  expense.  A  school  of  agriculture 
connected  with  each  State  university,  and  a  plan  for 
a  degree  in  agriculture,  to  be  attained  as  a  result  of 
proficiency  in  all  the  studies  in  the  agricultural  school 
proper,  plus  a  proficiency  in  several  other  cognate 
schools,  would  have  effected  the  purpose  in  view  much 
more  cheaply  and  much  more  efficiently,  provided  only 
the  State  university  would  not  have  required  of  the 
boy  desiring  to  study  agriculture,  that  he  pass  a  sense 
less  examination  in  subjects  a  knowledge  of  which  is 
not  necessary  to  the  mastery  of  scientific  agriculture. 

It  was  peculiarly  fit  that  in  Jefferson's  memory  a 
school  of  agriculture  should  have  been  attached  to  the 
University  of  Virginia,  and,  yet,  after  an  ineffectual 
attempt,  which  failed  for  what  reasons  I  know  not 
(but  chiefly,  I  take  it,  because  of  the  contempt  felt  by 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  291 

the  votaries  of  higher  classicism  for  so  plebeian  a 
pursuit),  a  separate  college  of  agriculture  was  founded 
at  Blacksburg,  Virginia. 

Those  who  understand  Jefferson's  peculiarly  inter 
esting  character  can  smile  with  pleasure,  when  they 
reflect  how  pleased  he  would  have  been  at  the  perusal 
of  the  endless  number  of  Farmers'  Bulletins,  which 
proceed  from  the  Department  of  Agriculture  at  Wash 
ington,  and  from  the  various  agricultural  colleges  of 
the  country.  He  would  have  been  superlatively 
absorbed  in  some  of  Dr.  Wiley's  interesting  work, 
and  in  his  still  more  interesting  narration  of  it,  and  his 
optimistic  and  sanguine  temperament,  running  ahead 
of  the  tune  to  the  end,  would  have  seen  in  Willis 
Moore's  meteorological  reports  a  period  when  the 
agriculturalist,  " forewarned  by  science,"  would  no 
longer  hold  his  fortune  at  the  sport  of  winds  and  frosts. 

In  the  "back  to  the  farm"  movement,  Jefferson 
would  have  been  in  the  front  rank.  He  always  thought 
that  farming  was  the  natural,  and  the  noblest  industrial 
pursuit  in  which  men  could  engage.  He  speaks  of  it 
in  a  letter  to  David  Williams,  dated  November  4,  1803, 
as  the  one  which  is  "first  in  utility"  and  "ought  to  be 
first  in  respect."  He  thought  that:  — 

"The  same  artificial  means  which  have  been  used  to  produce  a 
competition  in  learning,  may  be  equally  successful  in  restoring 
agriculture  to  its  primary  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  men.  It  is  a  science 
of  the  very  first  order.  It  counts  among  its  handmaids  the  most 
respectable  sciences;  such  as  Chemistry,  Natural  Philosophy, 
Mechanics,  Mathematics  generally,  Natural  History,  Botany.  In 
every  college  and  university  a  professorship  of  agriculture,  and  the 
class  of  its  students,  might  be  honored  as  the  first.  Young  men 
choosing  their  academical  education  with  this,  as  the  crown  of  all 


292      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  EJFFERSON 

other  sciences,  fascinated  with  its  solid  charms,  and  at  a  time  when 
they  are  to  choose  an  occupation,  instead  of  crowding  the  other 
classes,  would  return  to  the  farms  of  their  fathers,  their  own,  or 
those  of  others,  and  replenish  and  invigorate  a  calling  now  languish 
ing,"  etc. 

True  then,  every  word  of  it.  True  yet.  The  disease 
called  high  cost  of  living,  and  by  many  other  names,  is 
here  diagnosed,  and  a  partial  remedy  is  eloquently 
suggested.  In  addition  to  that,  it  sounds,  does  it  not, 
a  good  deal  like  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  "  modern 
scientific  agriculture"?  It  is  as  far  removed  as  possible 
from  the  notion  that  a  boy  that  is  fit  for  anything  else 
ought  not  to  go  to  farming,  and  still  further  removed 
from  the  cavalier-like  contempt  with  which  college 
fledgelings  view  the  great  primary  art.  The  truth  is, 
that  it  requires  very  much  more  brains  and  very  much 
more  information  to  be  a  really  successful  and  up-to- 
date  farmer,  than  it  does  to  make  an  excellent  lawyer, 
physician,  Senator,  or  college  professor  —  besides 
contributing  more  to  human  comfort  and  freedom. 
It  is  one  of  the  occupations  that  you  cannot  pursue  to 
highest  point  of  success  without  possessing  a  sort  of 
encyclopedic  information,  coupled  with  initiative  and 
decision,  for  the  problem  is  never  the  same  for  any 
two  years. 

But  enough  of  what  is  perhaps  a  hobby. 

Speaking  of  English  —  the  noblest  of  languages  — 
and  the  importance  of  its  study,  these  are  his  words: 
"A  language  already  fraught  with  all  the  eminent 
science  of  our  parent  country,  the  future  vehicle  of 
whatever  we  may  ourselves  achieve,  and  destined  to 
occupy  so  much  space  on  the  globe,  claims  distin 
guished  attention  in  American  education."  He  might 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  293 

have  expressed  a  just  pride  that  before  he  retired  from 
office  his  policies  had  resulted  in  our  language  occupying 
a  yet  more  broadly  extended  "  space  on  the  Globe." 

When  Jefferson  was  a  boy  his  father  had  told  him 
"that  the  training  of  the  hand  must  go  step  by  step  with 
that  of  the  mind.  In  fact,  his  father,  being  a  very  large 
and  powerful  man,  held  the  opinion  that  really  great 
minds  could  not  exist  outside  of  strong  bodies.  Jeffer 
son  therefore  pointed  out  that  a  hall  for  physical 
training,  with  the  proper  apparatus,  ought  to  be  at 
tached  to  the  University.  Again  the  consummation 
fell  short  of  his  conceptions.  The  Virginia  Legislature 
regarded  that,  I  suppose,  as  "one  of  Jefferson's  pets." 
At  any  rate,  the  University  did  not  have  a  gymnasium 
until  a  few  years  ago,  when  Mr.  Fayerweather  donated 
the  money  for  its  erection  and  equipment. 
^In  a  letter  to  Peter  Carr,  which  Jefferson  wrote  on 
September  7,  1814,  he  thus  outlines  another  scheme  for 
physical  culture  and  national  defense,  which  even  to 
this  day  has  not  gone  into  operation  and  which  might 
well  be  adopted  at  his  and  all  State  universities: 
"Through  the  whole  collegiate  course,  at  the  hours  of 
recreation  on  certain  days,  all  of  the  students  should 
be  taught  the  manual  exercise  [meaning  the  manual 
of  arms],  military  evolutions,  and  manoeuvres,  and 
should  be  under  a  standing  organization,  with  proper 
officers  to  train  and  command  them."  It  seems  curious 
that  Jefferson  should  seemingly  have  forgotten  here  his 
own  cherished  principle  of  leaving  the  choice  of  study 
always  open  to  the  student.  However,  his  idea  might 
be  well  applied,  with  this  modification,  that  those  only 
who  choose  to  do  so  shall  attend  the  school  of  military 


294     PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

science  and  practice.  Thus  the  members  of  the  student 
military  organization  would  be  volunteers.  It  would 
furnish  the  United  States,  by  the  way,  with  a  very  good 
and  not  a  small  army  —  highly  trained,  because  com 
posed  of  especially  intelligent  men  —  without  a  dollar 
of  public  expense,  except  the  amount  of  money  neces 
sary  for  each  State  to  employ  the  three  professors  of 
tactics  and  strategy  and  military  history  —  even  these, 
as  well  as  the  drill  master,  could  be  detailed  from  the 
Regular  Army.  The  other  branches  —  mathematics, 
engineering,  etc.  —  would  interlink  from  the  other 
schools  already  existing  in  each  university. 

The  heart  of  a  university  is  its  teaching  faculty, 
and  its  library.  Jefferson's  University  was  early  pro 
vided  with  a  very  useful  library,  from  which,  however, 
he  excluded  novels,  and,  from  the  beginning,  his  own 
library,  which  was  probably  the  largest  and  best  selected 
private  collection  then  in  America,  was  at  the  service  of 
its  students. 

His  professors  were  gotten,  for  the  most  part,  from 
abroad.  They  were  all  men  of  the  highest  ability  in 
their  respective  lines  of  work. 

But  even  teachers  cannot  make  an  institution  of 
learning  great  unless  the  teachers  and  the  teaching  are 
free  and  untrammelled.  With  this  idea  in  his  mind, 
Mr.  Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Roscoe,  dated  December 
7,  1820,  says:  — 

"This  institution  will  be  based  on  the  illimitable  freedom  of  the 
human  mind.  For  here  we  are  not  afraid  to  follow  the  truth  wher 
ever  it  may  lead,  nor  to  tolerate  any  error,  so  long  as  reason  is  left 
free  to  combat  it." 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  295 

His  professors  went  through  the  experience,  that 
every  man  and  woman  did,  who  were  brought  into  close 
personal  contact  with  Jefferson,  unless  there  was  some 
political  or  religious  reason  to  make  it  almost  im 
possible.  They  fell  in  love  with  him.  It  is  interesting, 
and,  indeed,  affecting,  to  read  what  they  wrote  about 
him  —  Dunglison,  Tucker,  and  all  of  them. 

It  is  perfectly  wonderful  that  the  man  should  have 
succeeded  in  erecting  the  beautiful  buildings,  each  a 
type  of  classic  architecture  —  himself  being  the  archi 
tect  and  draftsman  —  in  importing  the  professors,  and 
in  putting  the  institution  into  operation,  considering 
where  he  was,  by  what  confronted,  and  what  limited 
means  he  had  at  his  disposal.  The  poorer  men  of 
Virginia  were  apt  to  say,  "well,  that  will  never  do  my 
boy  any  good.  I  cannot  afford  to  board  him  there." 
The  rich  planter  was  wont  to  say  that  he  had  money 
enough  to  send  his  own  boys  to  college  and  he  did  not 
care  about  being  taxed  to  send  other  people's  boys 
thither.  Of  this  last  class,  who  were  not  as  numerous 
as  the  former,  but  had  much  more  influence  with  the 
Legislature,  Jefferson,  on  January  14,  1818,  in  writing 
to  Cabell,  said  —  and  I  think  said  beautifully:  — 

"And  will  the  wealthy  individual  have  no  retribution,  and  what 
will  this  be?  1.  The  peopling  of  his  neighborhood  with  honest, 
useful,  and  enlightened  citizens,  understanding  their  own  rights  and 
firm  in  their  perpetuation.  2.  When  their  own  descendants  become 
poor,  which  they  generally  do  in  three  generations,  (no  law  of  pri 
mogeniture  now  perpetuating  wealth  in  the  same  families)  their 
children  will  be  educated  by  the  then  rich,  to  his  descendants, 
when  become  poor,  thus  will  be  given  a  chance  of  rising  again. 
This  is  a  solid  consideration  and  should  go  home  to  the  bosom  of 
every  parent.  This  will  be  seed  sown  in  fertile  ground.  It  is  a 


296      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

provision  for  his  family  looking  to  distant  times,  and  far  in  duration 
beyond  that  he  has  now  in  hand  for  them.  Let  every  man  count 
backward  in  his  own  family,  and  see  how  many  generations  he  can 
go  before  he  comes  to  the  ancestor  who  made  the  fortune  he  now 
holds.  Most  of  us  will  be  stopped  at  the  first  generation,  many  at 
the  second,  few  will  reach  the  third,  and  not  one  in  the  State  can  go 
beyond  the  fifth." 

The  finest  citizenship  in  the  world  in  the  days  of 
Washington  and  Jefferson  was,  and  in  our  own  day  is, 
that  of  Virginia.  English  sturdiness  and  sure-footedness 
are  combined  with  American  vivacity  and  initiative. 
Its  greatness  especially  shines  out  in  loyalty  and  courage 
and  truth,  and  simplicity  of  living  —  the  cardinal 
virtues;  but  it  was  not  then  and  it  is  not  now  peculiarly 
susceptible  to  appeals  to  make  pecuniary  sacrifices  to 
be  recompensed  by  remote  rewards,  especially  if  these 
rewards  are  of  an  educational  character.  But  the 
patient,  sweet-tempered  old  philosopher  won  measur 
able  victory  over  all  difficulties,  and  was  ready  when  his 
time  came  to  say  nunc  dimittis. 

When  La  Fayette  visited  the  University  and  Monti- 
cello  in  1825,  at  the  grand  banquet  which  was  given  to 
him  Jefferson  attended,  and  in  response  to  a  toast  in 
his  own  honor,  being  too  feeble  to  rise  and  respond, 
handed  to  a  friend  to  read  a  paper  upon  which  the 
following  words  were  written:  — 

"My  friends,  I  am  old,  long  in  the  disuse  of  making  speeches, 
and  without  voice  to  utter  them.  In  this  feeble  state,  the  exhausted 
powers  of  life  leave  little  within  my  competence  for  your  service. 
If,  with  the  aid  of  my  younger  and  abler  coadjutors,  I  can  still  con 
tribute  anything  to  advance  the  institution  within  whose  walls  we 
are  mingling  manifestations  to  this  our  guest,  it  will  be,  as  it  ever 
has  been,  cheerfully  and  zealously  bestowed.  And  could  I  live  to 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  297 

see  it  once  enjoy  the  patronage  and  cherishment  of  our  public 
authorities  with  undivided  voice,  I  should  die  without  a  doubt  of 
the  future  fortunes  of  my  native  State,  and  in  the  consoling  con 
templation  of  the  happy  influence  of  this  institution  on  its  character, 
its  virtue,  its  prosperity,  and  safety." 

He  never  lived  to  see  it  enjoy  "with  undivided  voice 
the  patronage  and  cherishment"  of  Virginia's  "public 
authorities/'  nor  has  any  one  yet  lived  thus  long. 
Virginia  has  been,  upon  the  whole,  niggardly,  not 
generous.  It  looks  now,  as  if  she  would  leave  the  first 
completely  established  State  university  in  the  world 
behind  those  that  have  been  established  elsewhere  on 
the  plan  of  its  founder.  The  people  of  the  new  States 
in  the  West  have  adopted  Jefferson's  state  university 
idea,  and  they  have  been  much  more  generous,  and 
less  divided,  in  their  support.  Many  of  the  Western 
universities  surpass  the  parent  institution  in  wealth, 
appliances,  numbers  in  the  faculty,  comprehensive  scope 
of  teaching,  and,  especially,  with  irony  of  fate,  in  those 
very  practical  applied  sciences,  that  Jefferson's  mind 
was  so  peculiarly  bent  upon  fostering.  But  his  influ 
ence  has  been  none  the  less  great  and  permanent,  not 
only  in  the  Western  States,  where  his  idea  was  taken  up 
"with  undivided  voice,"  but  in  his  own  State,  and  the 
institution  which  he  founded  has  given  tone  and 
character,  in  a  notable  way,  not  only  to  Virginia,  but 
to  the  entire  South.  Its  work  has  been  thorough,  even 
where  its  scope  has  not  been  comprehensive,  and  the 
esprit  du  corps  has  constituted  one  of  the  most  precious 
things  upon  the  American  continent  —  diffusing  a 
spirit  of  honor,  freedom,  and  love  of  truth.  It  is  to-day 
undoubtedly,  in  its  spirit  and  in  its  practices,  the  least 


298      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

plutocratic  and  perhaps  the  most  democratic  institution 
in  the  East.  Its  students  do  not  know,  because  they 
do  not  inquire,  nor  care  to  know,  whether  a  student  is 
poor  or  rich.  They  do  sometimes  know  whether  he 
comes  from  a  good  or  a  bad  family. 

Tucker  says  that  in  consequence  of  a  riotous  tumult 
in  which  one  of  Jefferson's  nephews  was  concerned,  the 
laws  of  freedom  at  the  University  had  to  be  somewhat 
altered.  Perhaps  so  in  theory,  and  perhaps  so  even  in 
practice  in  his  time,  but  in  my  day,  in  practice  at  any 
rate,  there  were  only  two  rules :  first,  the  rule  which 
guides  gentlemen  in  their  intercourse  with  one  another; 
and  secondly,  the  rule  which  ought  to  guide  all  citizens 
—  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  State  and  of  the  United 
States.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  public  expulsion, 
though  sometimes  young  men  would  quietly  go  home, 
and  the  supposition  was  that  the  Chairman  of  the 
Faculty  had  called  for  them,  and,  in  a  private  conver 
sation,  had  admonished  them  that  they  were  doing  no 
good  for  themselves  or  anybody  else,  and  that  perhaps 
it  would  be  better  for  them  to  "seek  some  other  field  of 
usefulness."  Whenever  this  took  place,  of  course  it 
meant  that  they  did  go;  but  Jefferson's  idea  of  not 
putting  a  stain  upon  a  mere  youth,  that  might  hamper 
him  all  through  life,  was  observed  in  my  day  there. 
There  was  a  rule  that  you  must  attend  lectures;  that 
is,  that  you  must  not  "cut"  over  so  many  lectures  in  a 
month,  unless  your  absence  was  due  to  sickness,  and 
it  was  pretty  well  known  that  transcending  this  rule 
might  lead  to  the  private  admonition.  Being  once  in 
the  class  room  and  being  interrogated  upon  the  subject 
matter  of  the  last  lecture,  any  student  could  reply 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  299 

"Not  prepared,"  and  there  was,  strange  to  say,  no 
limit  upon  the  number  of  times  that  he  could  reply 
"Not  prepared."  There  was  a  reason  for  it:  he  had  to 
pass  his  "Intermediates"  and  "Finals"  anyhow  — 
they  were  the  tests. 

In  connection  with  Jefferson  and  the  University  of 
Virginia,  Schouler,  in  his  "Life  of  Jefferson,"  says:  — 

"The  first  Rector  of  the  University  of  Virginia  lived  long  enough 
to  see  the  institution  opened  in  the  Spring  of  1825,  with  a  fair  roll 
of  students  for  matriculation  and  a  corps  of  able  professors,  most 
of  whom  he  imported  from  Europe,  recognizing  that  in  the  world 
of  letters  a  young  Republic  must  not  be  self-sufficient.  Vicissitudes 
shared  by  Virginia  herself  have  kept  this  institution,  perhaps,  from 
making  its  impression  felt  throughout  the  Union;  but  the  oldest 
and  richest  of  America's  institutions  have,  in  later  times,  enlarged, 
one  after  another,  their  spheres  of  activities  upon  a  similar  model. 
All  the  strong  ideas  which  Jefferson's  university  put  in  force  for 
the  first  time  upon  American  soil,  remain  to  this  day  as  the  founder 
fixed  them  —  the  distinct  schools  in  which  one  may  specialize 
his  knowledge;  the  substitution  of  electives  for  the  routine  of  a 
curriculum;  the  honour  system  of  discipline  among  students, 
which  sets  them  to  influencing  one  another  and  makes  a  law  of 
liberty;  and  finally,  an  even  balance  between  all  religious  and  polit 
ical  sects  and  parties.  In  matters  of  the  higher  education  Jefferson, 
as  a  close  student  of  comparative  systems  and  an  adapter  to  the 
American  age,  was  much  farther  in  advance  of  his  times  than  in 
politics;  and  hence  his  fame  in  that  respect  has  come  less  rapidly, 
but  it  will  come  at  last." 

Hamilton  W.  Mabie,  in  an  article  on  "The  University 
of  Virginia,"  says:  — 


"It  fulfilled  Jefferson's  noble  conception  of  the  place  of  a  uni- 

l 


versity  in  a  democratic  society.    It  was  our  first  real  university. 


It  was  literally  Jefferson's  creation.    It  is  the  most  democratic  of 
American  colleges  in  its  organization." 


300      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

He  adds  that  it  was  "the  first  college  in  this  country 
to  adopt  a  general  architectural  scheme  and  to  preserve 
it  intact."  George  F.  Mellen,  in  an  article  entitled 
" Thomas  Jefferson  and  Higher  Education,"  New  Eng 
land  Magazine,  n.  s.,  vol.  26, 1902,  says:  "pHe  affected  vi 
tally  educational  ideals  and  changed  radically  some  of 
the  current  educational  practices."  He  "  introduced  a 
distinct  chair  of  modern  languages,  .  .  .  and  became 
the  first  champion  of  modern  language  studies  in  an 
American  college  curriculum."  George  Ticknor  visited 
and  sojourned  with  Jefferson  at  Monticello  in  1815, 
previous  to  his  trip  to  Germany  for  study.  Mellen 
says  their  intimacy  "bore  fruit  in  broadening  and 
liberalizing  work  at  Harvard,"  where  Ticknor  became 
professor  of  French  and  Spanish  literature. 

That  Jefferson  interested  himself  in  public  libraries 
as  schools  for  adults  —  and  therefore  indispensable 
educational  auxiliaries  —  was  demonstrated  in  his 
letters.  In  1809  he  wrote  to  John  Wyche,  who  had 
informed  him  in  a  recent  letter  of  the  establishment  of  a 
library  society:  — 

"I  always  hear  with  pleasure  of  institutions  for  the  promotion 
of  knowledge  among  my  countrymen.  The  people  of  every  country 
are  the  only  safe  guardians  of  their  own  rights,  and  are  the  only 
instruments  which  can  be  used  for  their  destruction.  And  certainly 
they  would  never  consent  to  be  so  used,  were  they  not  deceived. 
To  avoid  this,  they  should  be  instructed  to  a  certain  degree.  I 
have  often  thought  that  nothing  would  do  more  good  at  small 
expense  than  the  establishment  of  a  small  circulating  library  in 
every  county,  to  consist  of  a  few  well-chosen  books,  to  be  lent  to 
the  people  of  the  county,  under  such  regulations  as  would  secure 
their  safe  return  in  due  time.  These  should  be  such  as  would  give 
them  a  general  view  of  other  history,  and  a  particular  view  of  that 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  301 

of  their  own  country,  a  tolerable  knowledge  of  geography,  the 
elements  of  natural  philosophy,  of  agriculture,  and  mechanics." 

Of  course,  this  is  a  vastly  different  scheme  from 
those  immense  collections  in  large  cities,  in  great  and 
expensive  buildings,  of  all  sorts  of  books,  whose  bene 
fits  may  be  great,  but  are  not  diffused  throughout  those 
neighborhoods  where  they  are  most  needed.  It  is 
doubtful,  if  a  great  free  library  in  a  great  city,  the 
donation  of  some  generous  man,  produces  results 
commensurate  with  the  expense.  In  the  first  place, 
there  are  apt  to  be  several  free  libraries  and  a  large 
number  of  circulating  libraries  already  in  existence. 
In  the  second  place,  for  those  who  are  not  perfectly 
indigent  books  are  to  be  bought,  except  expensive 
reference  books,  for  a  very  little.  As  a  part  of  the 
"back  to  the  farm"  movement,  there  ought  to  be  a 
free  circulating  library  in  every  rural  neighborhood, 
or  else  a  free  public  library.  It  could  be  made  a  part 
of  the  school  teacher's  business  to  carry  the  key,  to 
give  out  and  take  in  and  keep  account  of  the  books. 
To  save  the  public  from  any  expense  at  all  —  except  the 
very  slight  one  of  wear  and  tear  by  use  —  a  deposit 
might  be  asked,  recoverable  upon  the  return  of  the 
book. 

In  connection  with  Jefferson's  other  educational 
work,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Virginia  State  Literary 
Fund  Board.  Virginia  not  being  prepared  for  com 
pulsory  education,  he  suggested  the  idea  of  holding 
over  the  parent  the  penalty  of  the  disfranchisement  of 
those  of  his  children  who  could  not  read  or  write, 
adding:  "Society  has  certainly  the  right  to  disavow 
him,  whom  it  offers,  and  is  not  permitted  to  qualify 


6 


302      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

for,  the  duties  of  a  citizen.  If  we  do  not  force  instruc 
tion,  let  us  at  least  strengthen  the  motive  to  receive 
it  when  offeree!?5 

The  following  letter  to  Cabell  I  think  is  one  of  the 
noblest  ever  penned,  in  its  fortitude  and  optimism,  and 
in  its  faith  in  the  youth  of  the  future:  — 

"When  I  retired  from  the  administration  of  public  affairs,  I 
thought  I  saw  some  evidence  that  I  retired  with  a  good  degree  of 
public  favour,  and  that  my  conduct  in  office  had  been  considered, 
by  the  one  party  at  least,  with  approbation,  and  with  acquiescence 
by  the  other.  But  the  attempt  in  which  I  have  embarked  so  ear 
nestly,  to  procure  an  improvement  in  the  normal  condition  of  my 
native  state,  although,  perhaps,  in  other  states  it  may  have  strength 
ened  good  dispositions,  it  has  assuredly  weakened  them  within  our 
own.  The  attempt  ran  foul  of  so  many  local  interests,  of  so  many 
personal  views,  and  so  much  ignorance,  and  I  have  been  considered, 
as  so  particularly  its  promoter,  that  I  see  evidently  a  great  change 
of  sentiment  towards  myself.  I  cannot  doubt  its  having  dissatis 
fied  a  respectable  minority,  if  not  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Delegates.  I  feel  it  deeply  and  very  discouragingly.  Yet  I  shall 
not  give  way.  I  have  ever  found  in  my  progress  through  life,  that, 
acting  for  the  public,  if  we  do  always  what  is  right,  the  approbation 
denied  in  the  beginning  will  surely  follow  us  in  the  end.  It  is  from 
posterity  we  are  to  expect  remuneration  for  the  sacrifices  we  are 
making  for  their  service  —  of  time,  quiet,  and  good  will,  and  I 
fear  not  the  appeal.  The  multitude  of  fine  young  men  whom  we 
shall  redeem  from  ignorance,  and  who  will  feel  that  they  owe  to 
us  the  elevation  of  mind,  of  character,  and  station  they  will  be  able 
to  attain  from  the  result  of  our  efforts,  will  insure  their  remembering 
us  with  gratitude,  we  will  not  then  be  weary  in  well  doing.  Usque 
ad  aras,  amicus  tuus." 

The  fact  that  Jefferson  selected  college-bred  men  for 
Ms  Cabinet  has  been  cited  to  prove  that  he  was  a  hypo 
crite  in  his  professions  of  democracy!  It  merely  proves 
malice  on  the  part  of  him  making  the  charge  and  that 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  303 

Jefferson  was  not  a  demagogue.  His  action  was  abso 
lutely  consistent  with  the  theory  from  which  he  never 
departed,  that  information  and  education  are  neces 
sary  for  government,  especially  in  those  who  do  the 
actual  governing. 

The  policy  of  giving  to  the  States  for  educational  pur 
poses  the  sixteenth  sections  of  the  public  lands,  while 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  retains  control 
of  the  balance,  had  its  beginning  under  Jefferson's 
administration,  at  the  time  of  the  admission  of  Ohio  as 
a  State.  There  was  also  given  to  that  State  five  per 
cent  of  the  sales  of  public  lands.  The  consecration  of 
the  sixteenth  sections  to  "the  better  diffusion  of  in 
formation"  in  Ohio  was  imitated  afterwards  in  all 
cases  upon  the  admission  of  new  States,  save  in  that  of 
Texas,  which  being  first  an  independent  republic, 
reserved,  with  our  consent,  all  her  public  lands. 

Nothing  in  our  whole  history  has  had  a  more  perma 
nently  beneficial  effect  upon  our  institutions  —  political, 
social  and  educational.  One  cannot  doubt  that  it 
was  at  President  Jefferson's  suggestion  that  Gallatin, 
his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  having  at  that  time  the 
Land  Office  in  his  Department,  made  the  recommen 
dations  to  Congress. 

As  President  of  the  United  States,  he  signed  many 
bills  in  which  he  approved  appropriating  public  lands 
not  only  for  common  schools,  but  for  academies  and 
colleges.  His  conceptions  were  stupendous.  They  are 
sometimes  humorous  or  pathetic  —  depending  on 
your  mood  —  when  contrasted  with  his  limited  means 
of  embodying  them.  For  example,  his  scheme  of 
transferring  the  whole  University  of  Geneva  to  Rich- 


304      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

mond,  Virginia  —  a  scheme  which  might  have  been 
perfected,  by  the  way,  but  for  the  fact  that  General 
Washington  pronounced  the  scheme  impracticable. 
Washington  was  one  of  the  few  men,  whose  opinions 
sometimes  controlled,  and  always  influenced  Jefferson. 

Jefferson,  while  President,  signed  a  bill  providing 
that  in  the  territory  south  of  the  Tennessee  line  (con 
stituting  the  present  States  of  Mississippi  and  Ala 
bama)  the  sixteenth  section  of  every  township  should  be 
dedicated  to  the  support  of  public  schools,  and  in  the 
Territory  of  Mississippi  thirty-six  sections  of  land  were 
given  for  the  use  of  a  college  —  which,  by  the  way 
was  subsequently  called  " Jefferson  College"  in  compli 
ment  to  the  President.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  this 
munificent  foundation  was  frittered  away.  After  the 
Louisiana  Territory  had  been  acquired  and  opened  for 
settlement,  Jefferson  signed  the  bill  of  April  21,  1806, 
which  not  only  reserved  the  sixteenth  section  of  every 
township,  but  devoted  an  additional  township  for  the 
support  of  "a  seminary  of  learning." 

He  was  an  economist,  but  when  it  came  to  giving 
away  land  for  school  purposes,  he  was  as  much  of  a 
spendthrift,  as  he  who  was  most  of  one.  He  was  a 
strict  constructionist,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  him  that  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  the 
right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  give  away  its  own 
lands  in  advancement  of  the  intelligence  of  its  own 
citizens.  In  this,  it  was  not  acting  so  much  in  the 
capacity  of  a  government,  as  in  that  of  a  land-owner, 
Congress  being  expressly  empowered  by  the  Consti 
tution  to  "  dispose  of  the  territory  and  other  property 
of  the  United  States."  The  dear  old  optimist  had  no 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  305 

distrust  of  the  future,  as  long  as  the  destinies  of  the 
country  were  hung  to  his  "two  hooks,"  popular  edu 
cation,  and  local  self-government. 

You  will  remember  that  Jefferson  once  suggested 
amending  the  Constitution,  so  as  to  authorize  the  Fed 
eral  Government  to  cooperate  with  the  States  in  edu 
cational  work.  I  think  it  may  perhaps  be  said  with 
truth  —  though  I  have  not  given  sufficient  detailed 
research  to  make  me  assured  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
comparison  —  that  under  no  single  administration  of 
the  Federal  Government  was  there  ever  so  much  done 
by  the  Government,  with  a  view  to  helping  the  States 
establish  and  maintain  education,  as  under  his  ad 
ministration. 

The  first  Republican  Congress,  with  the  incoming  of 
Jefferson,  introduced  a  new  custom  which  has  had  an 
abiding  and  permanent  educational  effect  upon  the 
people.  Up  to  that  time  newspaper  reporters  were 
admitted  and  expelled  at  the  will  of  the  Speaker,  and 
even  while  present,  were  not  considered  privileged  to 
comment  upon  the  proceedings.  One  Speaker  expelled 
two  for  reporting  speeches.  Over  in  the  Senate  they 
could  sit  in  the  gallery  with  the  other  spectators,  if 
they  chose.  The  Republicans  now  gave  reporters 
desks  on  the  floor,  and  ever  since  then  that  has  been  the 
custom.  This  has  two  important  effects:  first,  it  acts 
as  a  restraint  and  check  upon  the  Congressmen  in  both 
Houses;  second,  it  educates  the  people  in  practical 
governmental  science. 

On  December  10,  1821,  Hugh  Nelson,  a  Representa 
tive  from  Virginia,  presented  a  petition  signed  by 
Jefferson  for  the  "Rector  and  Visitors  of  the  University 
21 


306      PERMANENT  INFLUENCE  OF  JEFFERSON 

of  Virginia,"  praying  that  "the  aid  and  patronage  of 
Congress  may  be  extended  to  the  cause  of  science  and 
literature  generally  throughout  the  United  States  by 
an  exemption  from  duties  of  all  books  and  other  articles 
generally  used  in  acquiring  information."  This  duty 
was  fifteen  per  cent.  In  the  petition,  well  worth  your 
perusal,  occurs  this  phrase:  "To  obstruct  the  acquisi 
tion  of  books  from  abroad,  as  an  encouragement  of  the 
progress  of  literature  at  home,  is  burying  the  fountain 
to  increase  the  flow  of  its  waters." 

An  adverse  report  from  the  Senate  Finance  Com 
mittee  calls  books  "foreign  luxuries"  —  fit  subjects, 
therefore,  for  taxation,  and  objects  "to  singling  out 
this  important  branch  of  industry"  and  "stripping  it 
of  all  protection"  and  "leaving  it  to  struggle  with 
powerful  competitors."  How  familiar  these  stock 
phrases  of  beneficiaries  of  law-conferred  special  priv 
ileges!  Also  in  the  adverse  report,  foreign  books  are 
feared  "as  a  means  of  foreign  influence  from  which 
our  youths  may  imbibe  sentiments,  dangerous  to  our 
liberties." 

For  three  years  the  movement  was  laid  aside.  Then, 
in  1824,  Jared  Sparks  took  it  up  again  in  the  North 
American  Review,  and  Jefferson  wrote  a  letter  to  en 
courage  him  in  the  good  and  wise  work.  It  was  pub 
lished  with  effect,  and  in  the  Tariff  Act  of  1824,  the 
taxes  on  books  "printed  before  1775"  and  on  all  books 
in  foreign  languages,  except  Latin  and  Greek,  were 
reduced.  Printed  before  1775!  We  didn't  want  any 
late  information!  Too  dangerous  a  luxury!  Danger 
ous  to  the  publishers.  Thus  Congress  refused  "to 
wipe  this  stain  from  our  legislation,"  as  Jefferson 


ON  EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS  307 

stigmatizes  it  in  his  letter  to  Sparks,  "and  if  possible 
obliterate  it  from  the  mind  of  man." 
}  In  conclusion:  Well  warranted,  indeed  then,  were 
^these  words  of  the  lovable  "friend  of  man,"  written  in 
his  extreme  old  age,  not  long  before  "the  night  came, 
when  no  man  could  work/'  and  standing  as  a  prophecy 
and  a  promise  to  be  literally  fulfilled  up  to  the  very 
day  but  one  before  his  death:  — 

"A  system  of  general  instruction  which  shall  reach  every  de- 
description  of  our  citizens  from  the  highest  to  the  poorest,  as  it 
was  the  earliest,  so  it  will  be  the  latest,  of  all  the  public  concerns 
in  which  I  shall  permit  myself  to  take  an  interest." 

^Verily;  again  the  words  recur:  — 
"He  was  stigmatized  as  a  dreamer,  but  his  dreams  came  true."  : 


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INDEX 


Academy  of  science,  A  central,  to 
control  men,  53 

Act  for  freedom  of  religion  printed  in 
Paris,  265 

Adams,  Henry,  on  rejection  of  treaty 
effected  by  Monroe,  133;  on  Jeffer 
son's  aspirations,  200-1 

Adams,  John,  a  founder,  1;  error  of, 
about  the  sentiment  for  inde 
pendence,  29;  inaccurate  as  to 
Declaration  of  Independence,  30- 
31,  40;  colossus  of  debate,  31,  42; 
member  of  committee  to  prepare 
Declaration,  33;  to  Pickering,  on 
the  Declaration,  41;  wrote  Report 
of  Committee  on  Rights  and 
Grievances,  42-43;  failed  to  see 
ultimate  issue  of  French  Revo 
lution,  59 ;  contempt  of,  for  common 
folks,  61;  in  France,  107;  "Dis 
courses  of  Davila,"  143-44;  a  re 
actionary,  144;  conversation  with 
Hamilton  on  the  British  Consti 
tution,  156-57;  defeated  Jefferson 
by  three  votes,  169-70;  secured 
peace  with  France,  173-74;  hated 
by  Federalists,  174;  his  greatest  of 
services,  180;  heterodoxy  of,  245-46 

Adams,  Samuel,  at  Boston  tea-party, 
9;  and  committees  of  correspond 
ence,  9 

Agriculture,  A  school  of,  planned, 
289,  290-91 

Albemarle  County,  Instructions  of, 
12-13;  Committee  of  Safety  in, 
20,  21;  British  prisoners  in,  109-10 

Alien  and  sedition  laws  passed,  145; 
unexpected  results  of,  171;  power 
of  President  under  alien  law,  172; 
Jefferson's  antagonism  to,  172;  and 
Know-Nothing  movement,  172 

Allegiance,  The  doctrine  of  inde 
feasible,  16;  first  denial  of,  68,  91 

America,  the  fad  in  France,  107 

American  colonies,  The,  expatriated 
themselves,  16 


American  Commissioners  at  Madrid, 
Jefferson's  communication  to  the, 
124-25 

American  experience,  6;  our  institu 
tions  the  product  of,  38 

American  history,  A  suppressed  chap 
ter  of,  143,  148,  194 

American  nations,  An  American  policy 
for  all,  134,  136 

American  people,  The,  based  their 
claims  upon  natural  rights  of  man, 
46 

American  political  theory,  Jefferson's 
the,  54 

American  products  in  France,  107-8 

American  reign  of  terror,  175 

American  Revolution,  Back  to  the 
principles  of  the,  141,  183 

Americanism,  Exponents  of,  100 

Ames,  Fisher,  Letters  of,  155;  the 
American  people  like  free  negroes, 
155;  on  use  for  an  army,  180 

Anarchy,  Seeming  state  of,  12 

Angles  and  Saxons,  The,  expatriated 
themselves,  16 

Apollo  Room  in  Raleigh  Tavern  at 
Williamsburg,  Meetings  in,  10,  11 

Applied  sciences,  at  University  of 
Virginia,  282 

Apportionment  for  representation, 
240 

Appropriations  in  lump  sums,  237 

Aristocracy  and  clergy,  Jefferson's 
hatred  of,  learned  in  France,  57-58; 
eradication  of,  85;  and  the  rabble, 
286-87 

Aristocracy  of  Colonial  Virginia,  The, 
88-89 

Aristocracy  of  virtue  and  talent,  An, 
74 

Armstrong,  General,  on  Florida,  221 

Army,  with  Hamilton  as  chief,  and 
Federalist  officers,  projected,  175- 
76,  177;  to  overthrow  popular 
liberty,  179;  size  of  the,  179;  Ames 
on  use  of  an,  180;  Jefferson  on,  198 


313 


314 


INDEX 


Asiatic  interests  and  alliances,  3 
Assemblee   Nationale,   L',    Name   of, 
suggested   by   Jefferson,    56;    com 
mittee    of,    on    constitution    asked 
Jefferson's   assistance,    64;   not   an 
integral  legislature,  115 
Auditors  placed  in  one  Department, 

237 

Austria  denies  expatriation,  15 
Authorities    on    the   rights   of   man, 
55-56 

Bancroft,  George,  on  the  committees 

of  correspondence,  8 
Barbary  powers,  The,  put  down,  243 
Bayard,   James  Asheton,   Claims  of, 
baseless,  189;  on  Aaron  Burr,  191; 
the  creed  of,  192 ;  gave  off-the-bench 
opinion  of  Marshall,  194 
Bequests,  Limitation  of,  86 
Bibles,  Old  ladies  hid  their,  261-62 
Bill  of  Rights  adopted  in  Virginia,  43 
Bill  of  Rights,  embodied  in  Consti 
tution,  163,  264 

Blacksburg,    Va.,    College    of    Agri 
culture  at,  291 
Blackstone  on  libel,  178 
Blockade,  Jefferson  on,  126 
Bookkeeping,  Hamilton's  system  of,  36 
Books,  Removal  of  tariff  on,  refused 

by  Congress,  306-7 
Borough,  Rotten,  system  in  England, 

156,  157 

Bosses,  Too  many,  195 
Boston,  Closing  the  port  of,  a  declara 
tion  of  war,  11;  Jefferson's  protest 
against,  18;  ten  years  behind 
Jefferson  in  admitting  girla  to 
schools,  271 

Bread  famine  in  France,  58 
British  alliance,  Hamilton's  proposed, 

174 

British  ambassador,  Reception  of,  234 
British  captives  in  Albemarle  county, 

110 

British  constitution,  our  best  inherit 
ance,  30;  "best  form,"  148 
British  Court  society  imitated,  226 
British    government    "most    perfect 

which  ever  existed,"  157 
British  House  of  Lords,  The,  147 
British  model  advised  for  the  French, 
58 


British  nation,  Arraignment  of  justice 
of,  22 

Brown,  Justice,  Decision  of,  in 
Downes  case,  213 

Bryce,  James,  on  the  Louisiana 
purchase,  206 

Buckle's  "History  of  civilization,"  4 

Bull  Moose  Convention,  The,  pre 
tended  to  draw  faith  from  Jefferson, 
54 

Burke,  Edmund,  edited  Jefferson's 
"Summary  View,"  14;  failed  to  see 
ultimate  issue  of  French  Revo 
lution,  59;  on  Chatham,  93;  rhetoric 
of,  156,  157 

Burr,  Aaron,  Miranda's  connection 
with,  174;  had  same  number  of 
electoral  votes  as  Jefferson,  183; 
Hamilton's  hatred  of,  185;  Bayard 
on,  191;  something  to  credit  of, 
191;  conspiracy  of,  put  down,  242 

Business,  big,  Divorce  of  government 
and  politics  from,  159 

Cabell,  Joseph  C.,  Letters  to,  97-98; 

and  State  University,  274 
Cabot,  George,  Letters  of,  155 
Calhoun,    John    C.,    far   apart   from 

Jefferson,  96 
California    became    a    part    of    the 

United   States  on  acquisition,   212 
Canada,  G.  Morris  on  acquisition  of, 

214;  Jefferson  had  eye  on,  221 
Canning,  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 

135 
Capital  punishment,  Sole  defence  of, 

72 

Careys,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 
Carlyle  and  the  French  Revolution,  63 
Carmichael,  William,  112 
Carpet-bag  authority  intimidated,  12 
Carr,      Dabney,     brother-in-law      of 

Jefferson,  10 
Carter,  Dr.  James  C.,  on  Jefferson's 

educational  scheme,  266-67 
Carters,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 
Censors  of  government,  On,  171 
Central  American  republics,  The,  3 
Ceremonials  and  etiquette,  No  bureau 

of,  in  State  Department,  137 
Ceremonies,  Forms,  cavalcadings  and, 

abolished,  227-28,  230,  243 
Channing,  a  bracer  of  the  republic,  1 


INDEX 


315 


Charles  I,  Execution  of,  justified,  17 

Charter  for  the  French  people,  63 

Charters,  Rights  confirmed  not  cre 
ated  by,  13 

Chatham,  Burke  on,  93;  accepted 
Newcastle  and  corruption,  160;  on 
a  free  people  governing  dependents, 
220 

Childs,  Dr.,  Efforts  of,  in  Massa 
chusetts  Convention  of  1820,  262 

Christian  Constitutional  Society, 
Hamilton's,  194 

Church,  Definition  of  a,  264;  separa 
tion  of,  and  state,  264 

Church  membership  a  requisite  for 
suffrage,  94,  95 

Church,  State,  disestablished,  104, 
245;  punishments  in  Virginia  for 
offenses  against,  247;  levies  for 
support  of,  247-48;  property  of, 
saved  to  the,  251-52 

Cis-Atlantic  affairs,  No  interference 
of  Europe  in,  134,  136 

Citizenship,  Act  defining,  68,  69; 
education  to  equip  for,  268,  273, 
285-89 

Civil  war  imminent,  182,  183 

Clarke,  George  Rogers,  sent  to  the 
northwestern  country,  201,  220 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  70 

Class  distinctions  ignored,  92 

Class  hatred  of  Jefferson,  105 

Class  opposition  to  Jefferson's  the 
ories,  88-89,  91 

Class  privileges,  Jefferson  on  abolish 
ment  of,  64 

Classics,  Place  of  the,  268;  and 
modern  languages,  282-84 

Clergy,  Loss  to,  of  glebes  and  salaries, 
245;  levies  for  support  of,  247,  248, 
252;  attempt  at  a  Bill  providing 
for,  failed,  252 

Coalescence  of  Kings  and  bene 
ficiaries  of  special  privilege,  60 

Coinage  system,  239 

Coles,  Edward,  set  free  his  slaves,  76; 
letter  to,  on  slaves,  77 

College-bred  men  in  Jefferson's  Cab 
inet,  302-3 

College  students,  Duty  of,  266 

Colleges  and  universities,  Benefits  of, 
280 

Colonies,     Greek     Republican     con 


ception  of  status  of,  16;  practice  of 
British  empire  towards  her,  19; 
ministry  planning  to  invade  the,  22 

Colony,  Internal  regulations  of  each, 
12 

Columbia  University,  277;  study  of 
science  of  government  at,  285 

Columbus,  Christopher,  217 

Committee  on  Rights  and  Grievances, 
Report  of,  by  John  Adams,  42-43 

Committees  of  correspondence,  Origin 
of  the,  8;  intercolonial,  8,  10; 
revolutionary,  8,  11;  the  real 
government,  10 

Committees  of  safety,  9,  52;  Girardin 
on  the,  20;  Randall  on  the,  20-21 

Commonwealth  and  common  weal,  48 

Community,  Right  of  any,  to  change 
its  form  of  government,  13,  46,  48 

Compact,  Origin  of  the  neighborhood, 
5-6 

Confederation,  Virginia's  assent  to  a, 
12 

Congress,  An  American,  8;  a  general 
annual,  called  for,  by  Virginia,  11 

Congress,  Rights  of,  respecting  treat 
ies,  131;  should  cooperate  with  the 
States,  241 

Consent  of  the  governed,  46 

Constable,  The,  6;  elective,  102 

Constitution,  the  present,  Jefferson 
in  favor  of,  34;  Hamilton's  plan  for 
a,  150-52;  views  on,  152-54;  "a 
frail  and  worthless  fabric,"  153; 
amendments  to,  secured  by  Jeffer 
son,  163;  a  bulwark  of  protection 
for  the  people,  163;  the  unwritten, 
169;  amended,  190-91;  an  overcoat, 
213;  Bill  of  rights  made  part  of,  264 

Constitution  of  Virginia  adopted,  43; 
with  Jefferson's  preamble,  44 

Constitutions,  Rights  confirmed  not 
created  by,  13 

Constitutions,  state,  Jefferson  on; 
100-1;  adopted  by  conventions, 
101;  submitted  to  the  people,  102; 
periodical  amendments  to,  103 

Constructive  genius  of  Jefferson  and 
Hamilton,  35-36 

Continental  Congress,  First  move 
ment  for  a,  11;  instructions  to 
Virginia  members  of,  14-15;  Jeffer 
son  chosen  to,  21,  23;  reply  to 


316 


INDEX 


Lord  North  adopted  by,  23;  com 
mittee  of,  on  a  declaration  of 
causes,  23-24;  adopted  a  declara 
tion,  24;  committee  on  the  "Con 
ciliatory  Proposal,"  26;  desired  a 
lasting  union  with  Great  Britain,  30 

Contraband,  Doctrine  concerning,  126 

Convention,  Powers  lodged  in  a,  15; 
Jefferson  threatened  to  call  a, 
186,  187,  188,  189 

Cook,  T.  A.,  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
134-35 

Cooke,  John  Esten,  on  the  change  in 
Virginia,  92 

Corruption  essential  to  government 
of  a  nation,  158,  160 

Cotton,  John,  denounced  democracy, 
94-95 

Counter-Revolution,  The  American, 
30;  overcome  by  Jefferson,  54,  60; 
Jefferson  foresaw,  85;  stemming 
tide  of,  141-95;  result  of,  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution, 
190-91;  defeat  of  the,  217 

Counter-revolutionists,  Desperate 
move  of  the,  180-81;  Jay  defeated 
the,  182;  had  choice  of  three  things, 
186;  feared  a  convention,  186-88; 
checkmated,  189 

County,  Organization  of  a  new,  6; 
wards  or  townships  in  a,  97-98, 
102;  administration  of  a,  102; 
division  of,  into  hundreds,  269 

Court  system  of  Virginia  simplified,  69 

Courts,  Adventitious  properties  of, 
225 

Criminal  laws  of  Virginia  reformed, 
69;  preamble  to  the  criminal  code, 
71-72 

Crisis,  Hamilton  always  anticipating 
a,  154,  173-74;  changing  electoral 
vote  of  New  York  a,  181;  approach 
ing,  183 

Cromwell,  Treaty  of,  with  Virginia,  17 

Cross  vs.  Harrison,  Case  of,  212 

Cuba,  Jefferson  had  eye  on,  221 

Curtis,  William  E.,  on  Jefferson,  194- 
95;  on  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana, 
216-17;  on  Jefferson's  inauguration, 
231-32;  and  manners,  233 

De  Lima  case,  The,  212 

Death  penalty,  Removal  of  the,  69 


Debt,  The  public,  236,  237-38; 
amount  of,  paid,  242 

Debts  due  foreigners,  Collection  of, 
114 

Debts,  Foreign,  international,  115 

Debts,  state,  Federal  assumption  of, 
161-62 

Declaration  of  Independence,  Essen 
tial  ideas  of,  in  the  "Summary 
View,"  17;  Jefferson's  account  of 
the  writing  of  the,  30-31;  committee 
chosen  to  prepare,  31-32;  Jefferson 
the  author  of  the,  33-34;  passed, 
35;  an  evolution  of  revolutionary 
thought,  37;  Merwin  on,  39; 
Lincoln  on,  39;  parts  of  original 
draft  of,  stricken  out  by  Congress, 
40;  "quotable"  and  received  with 
enthusiasm,  43;  De  Witt  on,  45; 
50th  anniversary  of,  51;  Jefferson's 
letter  to  Weightman  on,  51;  a 
logos,  52;  the  Soul-Politic  of  the 
American  people,  54;  Jefferson's 
pride  in  authorship  of,  67;  oppo 
sition  to  slavery  in,  74-75 

Declaration  of  rights,  passed  by 
House  of  Burgesses,  32,  43;  adopted 
by  French  National  Assembly,  64 

Declaration  of  the  causes  of  taking 
up  arms,  23-26;  Jefferson's  para 
graphs  of  the,  24,  25-26 

"Defense  of  American  constitu 
tions,"  144 

Democracy,  The  fear  of,  2;  attacks 
upon,  ineffectual,  55;  Hamilton's 
distrust  of,  150;  more,  the  best 
cure  for  evils  of,  165;  judges  har 
anguing  against,  175;  and  edu 
cation,  266,  286-87;  will  correct 
its  own  errors,  287 

Democratic-Republican  party,  The, 
160 

Democratic-Republicans,  The,  found 
ed  on  Jefferson's  political  theory, 
54;  ceased  to  be  Jeffersonian,  84 

Democratization,  of  the  state,  102-3; 
of  the  Federal  government,  196 

Democratizer  of  federal  institutions, 
141-95 

Democratizer  of  state  institutions, 
67-106 

Derk  van  Capellen,  see  Van  Capellen 

Descents,  Statute  of,  73-74 


INDEX 


317 


Dickens,    Charles,    and    the    French 

Revolution,  63 

Dickinson,    John,    member   of   Com 
mittee  on  declaration  of  causes,  24; 
kept  paragraphs  of  Jefferson's,  24 
Diplomacy,  English  the  official  lang 
uage  of,  138;  the  study  of,  285 
Diplomatic  Corps,   Highest  titles  of 

our,  139 

Diplomatic  state  papers  admired,  129 
Disarmament  on  the  border,  139 
"Discourses  of  Davila,"  The,  143 
Disestablishment,    Labors    for,    245- 
46,  247-51;  in  Massachusetts,  246, 
262;     denunciation     of     Jefferson, 
because  of,  258-63 
Dispatches,  Jefferson's,  111 
Divine  right  of  the  "better  element" 

to  rule,  192 
Doctrinaire,  Jefferson  called  a,  58,  67, 

93       • 

Doctrines,  hard  and  unpalatable,  89 
Dorset,  Duke  of,  and   Jefferson   and 

the  Tiers  Etat,  56 
Downes  case,  The,  212-13 
Dwight,  Theodore,  Letters  of,  155 
Dwight,  Thomas,  Letters  of,  155 

Eastern  Shore,  Great  estates  on  the, 
88-89 

Economy  and  liberty,  103 

Edinburgh  Review  on  Jefferson,  111- 
12;  on  Miranda,  174 

Education,  Aims  of  the  higher 
branches  of,  278;  cumulative  influ 
ence  of,  279-80;  democracy  must 
provide,  286;  government  aid  for, 
under  Jefferson,  305 

Education,  primary,  The  objects  of, 
267 

Education,  A  system  of,  necessitated, 
55;  bill  to  establish,  68-69;  ele 
mentary  school  part  of,  enacted,  71; 
general,  96-97,  165;  scheme  for, 
presented  to  the  State  Legis 
lature,  267-68,  269-71;  prizes  in 
grades  of,  278-79;  keystone  to 
arch  of  government,  280 

Elections,  John  Adams  on,  143-44 

Elective  studies,  282 

Electoral  college,  Abolishment  of, 
recommended,  241 

Emancipation  of  slaves,  Bill  for  the, 


76;    and    deportation,    78,    82-84; 

a  pre-Revolution  idea,  217 
Embargo,  New  England's  position  on 

the,  120,  243 

Empire,  A  well-poised,  19-20 
England,  Institutions  of,  3-4;  people 

of,  in  accord  with  Ring  and  Parli 
ament,  41 
English  colonies,  Government  system 

in,  164-65 
English  Government,  System  of  the, 

164-65 
English-speaking  race,  Experience  of 

the,  37-38 
English     the     official     language     of 

diplomacy,  138;  the  study  of,  283, 

292-93 
Entail,  Abolition  of,  67,  68,  74,  90; 

result  of,  85;  Bill  for,  88;  fight  for, 

90-91 
Epitaph,  Jefferson's  draft  of  own,  216, 

251 

Eppes,  Jack,  Letter  to,  200 
Error,  Truth  and,  244 
Esprit,  L\  des  Lois,  4 
Estates,   stupendous,   Disposition  of, 

90 
Estates  tail,  Act  abolishing,  68,  72- 

74,  88 

Etiquette,  Jefferson  on,  229,  234 
Europe,  broils  of,   No  entanglement 

with  the,  134,  136,  200 
Executive,     Power    of,     in     English 

Government,    164-65;    self-succes 
sive,  and  dictatorship,  168 
Expansion  under  Jefferson  and  Mc- 

Kinley,  217 
Expatriation,    The   right   of,    15-16; 

first  legislative  assertion  of,  68 
Extradition,  Question  of,  113 

Fairfax  County,  Washington  and  the 
resolutions  of,  14 

Farming,  Jefferson  on,  291-92 

Fathers  of  countries  must  put  up 
with  free  speech,  171-72 

Fayerweather,  Daniel  B.,  gave  gym 
nasium  to  University  of  Virginia, 
293 

Federal  power,  Extent  of,  over  the 
States,  114 

Federal  Republic  of  Anglo-Saxony,  A, 
conceivable,  224 


318 


INDEX 


Federalist,  The,  opposed  to  popular 
movements,  164 

Federalists,  The,  opposed  observing 
the  French  treaties,  118;  helped 
Jefferson,  171;  all  army  officers, 
175;  plot  to  keep  Jefferson  and 
Burr  from  being  seated,  176,  180- 
81,  186;  feared  a  convention,  186, 
187-88;  rank  and  file  of,  humiliated, 
190;  Jefferson's  feeling  towards, 
192-93;  effect  of  Jefferson's  ad 
ministration  on,  263 

Financial  system,  Hamilton's,  an 
imitation,  36;  his  Treasury  meas 
ures,  160-62 

Fiske,  John,  on  Boston  tea-party,  9; 
on  seeming  state  of  anarchy,  12; 
on  Jefferson's  letter  to  Randolph 
on  separation,  28;  estimate  of 
Jefferson,  35-36;  Jefferson  no 
French  doctrinaire,  45 ;  on  a  Federal 
Republic  of  Anglo-Saxony,  224; 
on  hiding  Bibles,  261 

Florida,  would  be  ours  in  due  time, 
202-3;  the  people  of,  to  be  citizens, 
220;  Gen.  Armstrong  on,  221 

Foreign  Affairs,  Secrecy  in  Depart 
ment  of,  138 

Foreign  languages  not  required  of 
clerks  in  our  State  Department,  137 

Foreign  relations,  Our,  an  expression 
of  Jefferson's  policies,  122,  125,  130 

Foresight  of  Jefferson,  2 

Forms,  ceremonies,  and  cavalcadings 
abolished,  227-28,  230,  243 

Forms  obtaining  in  State  Department, 
137 

Foster,  J.  W.,  anti-Jeffersonian,  122; 
on  credit  of  United  States,  162 

France,  Revolutionary  committee 
system  in,  20;  Jefferson  in,  56-66; 
cost  of  the  American  war  to,  57; 
domestic  violence  in,  60;  con 
vulsions  in,  followed  in  Europe,  62; 
our  treaties  with,  116-21;  war  with 
did  not  occur,  173,  174;  Hamilton 
anxious  to  declare  war  with,  179— 
80;  warning  to,  about  New  Orleans, 
201,  203 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  a  bracer,  1; 
chairman  committee  on  reply  to 
Lord  North,  26;  made  verbal 
corrections  in  Declaration  of  Inde 


pendence,  31,  40;  on  committee  to 

prepare  the,  33 ;  Minister  to  France, 

107;  conceived  a  Federal  Republic 

of  English  peoples,  224 
Frederick  of  Prussia,  Treaty  with,  110 
Freedom,  The  love  of,  2 
Freedom     of     religion     in     America, 

Influence  on,  244-65 
Freedom  of  religion,  speech,  etc.,  46 
Freedom  of  speech,  46,  243,  244 
Freedom  of  the  press,  advocated,  241- 

42,  243 

French  Canal-Bond-Sale,  The,  172 
French  debt,  Payment  on,  suspended, 

115;  we  ought  to  have  paid,  117 
French  Revolution,  De  Witt  on  the, 

45;  American  Revolution  one  cause 

of  the,   56-57;  Jefferson  and  the, 

58-64 
French     revolutionists,     drew     from 

America,    45;    regarded    us    as    a 

model,  56;  Jefferson  adviser  of  the, 

56,  57,  58;  violence  of,  a  protest,  60; 

not  ripe  for  their  blessings,  62 
French  soldiers  and  officers  caught  the 

American  spirit,  56-57 
French  West  India  Islands,  The,  133 
Freneau,    Trouble   with   Washington 

over,  127-28;  Jefferson  on,  171 
Fr6nesie  quasi  monarchique,  A,  228 
Frontiersman,  Jefferson  a,  5-6 

Gallatin,  Albert,  on  right  to  acquire 
territory  by  treaty,  210-11;  estab 
lished    our   treasury    system,    238; 
and  the  public  lands,  303 
Gardener,  Helen,  on  Lincoln,  78 
Genet,   Edmond   C.   E.,    Mission   of, 
121-22;    recalled,    124;    settled    in 
America,  125 

George  III,  Appeal  to,  in  the  "Sum 
mary  View,"  19-20;  reply  of  Van 
Capellen  to,  31;  name  of,  legislated 
out  of  prayer  book  in  Virginia,  32; 
censure  of,  stricken  out  of  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  40-41 
German,  Study  of,  283 
Germany,  Institutions  of,  3-4 
Gierke,  Otto,  on  the  rights  of  man,  38 
Girardin,    L.   H.,   on   committees   of 

safety,  20 

Glebes,  church,  Loss  of,  245;  restored, 
251-52 


INDEX 


319 


Glittering  generalities,  so-called,  37, 
45,  46,  75;  Lincoln's  summary  of 
the,  39,  75 

God  and  the  Man,  54 

Gore,  Christopher,  Letters  of,  155 

Government,  Germ  of  dual  system  of, 
12;  right  of  throwing  off,  13,  46, 
47-49;  Jefferson  a  founder  of  our, 
34-35;  right  to  alter  or  to  abolish, 
48;  bad,  the  result  of  too  much,  49; 
a  means  not  an  end,  50;  liberties 
and,  53;  grades  of  power  conferred 
upon,  55,  97;  precedent  for  terri 
torial  system  of,  69 ;  the  real  balance 
in  our,  99;  marshalled  out  into 
general  and  lesser  republics,  102-3; 
preference  for  kingly,  spreading, 
142-44;  Hamilton  on  efficiency  in, 
149-50,  161;  by  popular  plebiscite 
advocated,  165;  censors  of,  171; 
libelling  the,  unknown,  172 

Government,  Our  Federal,  the  least 
responsive  to  result  of  an  election, 
164;  power  delegated  to,  209-10; 
Jefferson  on,  212 

Government  resting  on  compact,  Idea 
of,  5-6 

Government,  Science  of,  as  a  study, 
284-85,  287-88,  289 

Governments,  Recognition  of,  116 

Grant,  rebuked  by  own  party,  166, 
167 

Great  Britain,  Lasting  union  with, 
desired,  30;  and  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  135,  136;  centennial  of 
peace  with,  139;  about  to  seize 
New  Orleans,  201;  could  take 
and  hold  against  France,  204 

Greek  and  Latin,  The  teaching  of, 
283,  284 

Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  Treaty  of,  212, 
220 

Guillotine,  Lives  lost  by  the,  60 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  a  nation  builder, 
1;  not  a  constructive  genius,  36; 
distrusted  the  masses,  51;  failed 
to  see  ultimate  issue  of  French 
Revolution,  59;  on  extent  of  Federal 
power,  114;  on  French  treaties  and 
Minister,  118;  on  Genet,  124;  a 
monarchist,  144,  145,  149,  150,  153; 
advocated  monarchy  at  Consti 


tutional  Convention,  147-48;  head- 
notes  of  speech,  148-49,  150;  plan 
offered  to  the  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  150-52;  views  on  present 
Constitution,  152-54;  letters  of, 
155,  174;  conversation  with  J. 
Adams  on  a  "monarchy  bottomed 
on  corruption,"  156-57,  158;  Jeffer 
son  on,  158;  deemed  corruption 
essential,  158-59;  idol  of  the 
monied  classes,  159 ;  Treasury  meas 
ures  of,  160-61;  in  the  Federalist, 
163-64;  his  philosophy  of  govern 
ment,  170;  H.  C.  Merwin  on,  173- 
74;  on  a  permanent  army,  175-76, 
177;  advised  division  of  Pennsyl 
vania  and  Virginia,  176;  on  libels 
against  government  officials,  177; 
anxious  for  a  war,  179-80;  letter  to 
Jay  on  changing  vote  of  New  York, 
181-82,  186;  military  ambition  of, 
182-83;  hated  Burr  more  than 
Jefferson,  185,  189;  questioned 
repeal  of  the  judiciary  act,  194; 
"Christian  Constitutional  Society" 
of,  194 

Hamilton,  John  C.,  biographer,   148 

Hanover  County,  Resolutions  of,  14 

Harbors  of  refuge,  110 

Harlan,  Justice,  Dissenting  opinion 
of,  in  the  Downes  case,  213-14 

Harmony  of  the  bold  with  the 
cautious  in  Virginia,  7 

Hart,  A.  B.,  on  Jefferson's  discretion, 
203-4;  on  the  acquisition  of  Louisi 
ana,  215;  on  our  treasury  system, 
238 

Harvard  University,  277 

Hazen,  calls  Jefferson  a  republican 
militant,  58;  on  Jefferson's  views  of 
the  French  Revolution,  59 

Henry,  Patrick,  and  resolutions  of 
Hanover  County,  14;  opposed  to 
Constitution,  34 

Hero-worship,  the  great  danger  of  a 
democracy,  235 

Hill,  A.  P.,  Stonewall  Jackson's  last 
words  an  order  to,  52 

History,  The  study  of,  269,  288-89 

Hoar,  Senator,  on  Jefferson,  216 

Home-making,  Vast  territory  for,  216, 
217 

House  of  Burgesses,  Meeting  of,  in 


320 


INDEX 


the  Apollo  Room,  10,  11;  called 
for  a  general  congress,  11;  instruc 
tions  to  delegates,  11-12;  resolu 
tions  of,  for  independence,  32 

House  of  Commons,  Powers  of,  164- 
65 

House  of  Lords  "a  most  noble  insti 
tution,"  147 

House  of  Representatives,  to  deter 
mine  between  Jefferson  and  Burr, 
183-84;  plan  for,  to  reorganize  the 
government,  186 

Huger,  on  Jefferson's  election,  184, 
186,  190,  191 

Hugo,  Victor,  245 

Humaneness,  legislative,  First  ex 
ample  of,  69 

Hundreds,  Counties  to  be  divided 
into,  97,  269;  military  company 
and  school  in  each,  269 

Illinois,  Education  in,  281 
Immigration,  Restriction  of,  140 
Impressment,  Question  of,  132 
Inaugural  processions,  expensive  and 

dangerous,  234 

Independence,  hastened  by  com 
munication  from  R.  Penn  and  A. 
Lee,  28-29;  increase  of  advocates 
of,  31 

Independency,  Jefferson  nearing,   28 
Indiana,  Education  in,  281 
Indians,    Land    acquired    from,    by 

treaty,  239-40 
Individual,  The,  his  own  governor,  46 ; 

and  the  Divine  Individuality,  54 
Influence,  Jefferson's,  how  treated,  4; 
as  a  diplomat,  107-40;  as  president, 
196-243;    on    freedom    of    religion, 
244-65;   on  our  educational  insti 
tutions,  266-307 
Influence,  political,  A  man's,  4 
Inheritance,  Limitation  of,  86 
Institutions,    Permanency    of    a    na 
tion's,  2-3;  what  are,  3-4;  informing 
spirit  of  our,  7;  dangers  to,   168; 
debt    of    our,    to    Jefferson,    184; 
reverence  for,  235 
Internal  taxes  abolished,  236 
International     law,     Correspondence 

with  Hammond  on,  139 
International     relations,     Jefferson's 
impress  on  our,  112;  message  on, 


128-29;  successfully  managed  by 
Jefferson,  130;  correspondence  with 
Hammond  on,  139;  all  power  with 
regard  to,  resides  in  the  Federal 
Government,  210-11 

Interstate  commerce,  Power  of  Con 
gress  over,  240-41 

Intimidation,  So-called,  of  an  Ad 
ministration,  18 

Intolerance  and  incompetency  in  the 
church,  246 

Iowa,  Education  in,  281 

Italian,  Study  of,  283 

Italy,  Institutions  of,  3-4 

Jackson  Democrats,  The,  29-30 

Jackson,  Stonewall,  Last  words  of,  52 

Jacobins,  How  the  French  became, 
60-61 

Japanese,  The,  and  the  classics, 
283-84 

Jay,  John,  on  a  King,  146;  dreaded 
popular  movements,  164;  rejected 
Hamilton's  scheme,  181-82,  186 

Jay  Treaty,  The,  112,  131,  132; 
Washington's  humiliation  of  sign 
ing,  197 

Jefferson,  Andrew  D.  White  on,  1-2; 
the  man,  4;  his  environment,  5—6; 
the  revolutionist,  7-66;  in  America, 
7-56;  member  of  House  of  Bur 
gesses,  13;  on  the  "Summary 
View,"  14-15;  proscribed,  14,  17; 
always  in  advance,  17;  "timid"  and 
"vacillating,"  17,  20,  23;  chairman 
of  Committee  of  Safety,  20,  21; 
member  of  Continental  Congress, 
21,  23;  Reply  to  North's  "Con 
ciliatory  Proposal,"  21-22,  23,  26; 
draws  up  Declaration  of  causes  of 
taking  up  arms,  24,  25-26;  member 
of  committee  on  Lord  North's 
"Proposal,"  26;  on  first  idea  of 
separation,  28-29 ;  corrected  Adams' 
error  about  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  30-31;  chairman  of  com 
mittee  on  Declaration,  32,  33; 
legacy  of  class  hatred  of,  33;  a 
founder  of  our  Government,  34-35; 
faith  of,  in  the  people,  36;  on  rights 
of  man,  38;  his  original  draft  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
40;  on  Adams'  and  Pickering's 


INDEX 


321 


observations,  41-42;  "plan  of  gov 
ernment"  for  Virginia,  43-44;  on 
the  business  of  government,  49-50; 
on  love  for  and  distrust  of  the 
people,  50-51;  on  the  Declaration, 
51;  last  words  of,  52;  parties  based 
on  political  theory  of,  54;  its 
salient  points,  55;  in  France,  56- 
66;  modesty  of,  56,  64-65,  67;  and 
the  French  revolutionists,  56,  57, 
61-66;  a  Celt,  57;  on  what  was 
best  for  France,  57-58;  his  hope  for 
France,  58-61;  four  great  measures 
of,  67;  inscription  for  tomb  of,  67; 
acts  of  constructive  legislation, 
68-70;  on  freeing  his  slaves,  75- 
76,  77-78;  on  importation  of  slaves, 
76;  on  emancipation  and  deporta 
tion,  78,  82-84;  a  logos,  82;  presci 
ent  wisdom  of,  83;  a  conservative 
reformer,  85;  on  limitation  of 
bequests,  86-87;  in  Virginia  House 
of  Delegates,  87-88;  an  apostle  of 
local  self-government,  96-106;  Wat 
son  on  work  of,  104;  on  state 
governments,  104;  mind  of,  a 
laboratory,  105;  as  a  diplomat, 
107-40;  Minister  to  France,  107-8, 
111;  the  Model  treaty,  108-11;  as 
Secretary  of  State,  112,  114-15, 
129;  on  the  French  debt,  115;  on 
the  French  treaties,  117-18;  on 
neutrality,  122-23;  on  Genet,  124, 
125;  on  our  relations  with  foreign 
nations,  125;  on  free  goods,  block 
ade,  and  contraband,  126;  resigns 
from  the  Cabinet,  126,  128;  Report 
on  foreign  commerce,  129;  on  rights 
of  Congress  and  President  respect 
ing  treaties,  131-33;  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  133-36;  stemming  the 
counter-revolution,  141-95;  a  prac 
tical  man,  142;  election  of,  in  1800, 
our  second  revolution,  155;  on 
conversation  of  Adams  with  Hamil 
ton,  156-57;  secured  amendments 
to  Constitution,  162-63;  on  term 
for  President,  165-67;  refused  third 
term,  166,  169;  elected  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  170;  schemes  to  defeat 
election  of,  as  President,  181-90; 
elected  by  the  people,  183;  had 
same  number  of  electoral  votes  as 
22 


Burr,  183;  victory  of,  184,  189; 
denied  right  of  Congress  to  re 
organize  government,  186;  threat 
ened  to  call  a  convention,  186-89; 
refused  to  make  terms,  188;  de 
feated  the  Federalists,  189;  on  the 
result,  190;  inaugural  address  of, 
193;  on  error,  193;  Curtis  on,  195; 
influence  of,  as  President,  196-243; 
our  reasons  for  peace,  197-98;  on 
an  army,  198;  on  Leopard-Chesa 
peake  incident,  199;  hoped  for  a 
new  era,  200-1;  the  expansionist, 
201;  on  marrying  the  British  fleet 
and  nation,  203;  discretion  of, 
203-4;  on  the  Louisiana  cession, 
205-6;  and  Napoleon,  206;  the 
purchase,  206-7;  doubts  of,  on 
acquisition  of  territory,  208,  209-10; 
mistake  of,  211;  on  powers  of 
Federal  Government,  212;  annexed 
contiguous  lands,  217;  broad  vision 
of,  for  expansion,  221-22;  ordinance 
for  Northwest  Territory,  223;  and 
Washington,  friends,  228;  reception 
to  ladies  at  levee,  230;  inauguration, 
231-32;  as  President  he  was  the 
court,  233;  afraid  of  hero-worship, 
235;  father  of  our  coinage  system, 
239;  on  freedom  in  religion,  244, 
245;  member  of  Committee  on 
religion  and  morality,  246;  Bill  for 
religious  freedom,  249-50,  253-56; 
religious  views  of,  257-58;  denunci 
ation  of,  258-63;  as  a  political 
manager,  263;  made  a  LL.D.  at 
Harvard,  266;  educational  scheme, 
267-71;  project  for  a  State  Uni 
versity,  272,  274-75;  Rector  of 
University,  275;  Report  of,  276, 
277-79;  strong  in  preambles,  280; 
on  State  Literary  Fund  Board, 
300-1;  stupendous  conceptions  of, 
303-4;  a  spendthrift  economist, 
304-5;  petition  for  removal  of 
duties  on  books,  305-6;  for  edu 
cation  to  the  last,  307 

Jefferson  Bible,  The,  258 

Jefferson  College,  in  Mississippi, 
Foundation  of,  frittered  away,  304 

Jefferson,  Letters  of,  quoted :  To  Wm. 
Wirt,  7;  to  John  Randolph,  28,  30; 
to  Du  Pont  de  Nemours,  50;  to 


322 


INDEX 


Mayor  Weightman  on  the  Declara 
tion,  51;  to  Mr.  Short  on  the 
French  Revolution,  61;  to  E.  Coles 
on  the  slaves,  77;  to  Franklin  on 
the  change  in  Virginia,  92-93;  to 
Gov.  Tyler  on  education  and 
hundreds,  96-97;  to  Cabell  on 
education  and  wards,  97-98;  to 
Kercheval  on  townships,  98;  to 
Kercheval  on  state  constitutions, 
100-1;  to  E.  Rutledge  on  the  Jay 
Treaty,  131;  on  Monroe  Doctrine, 
134,  136;  to  John  Taylor  on 
President's  term,  166-67;  to  Madi 
son  on  defeat  of  the  Federalists,  189; 
to  Noah  Worcester  on  peace,  196; 
to  Eppes  on  European  wars,  200; 
to  De  Marbois  on  expansion,  222; 
to  Madison  on  adulatory  titles, 
226-27;  to  Gallatin  on  finances, 
235-36;  mistake  in  publishing,  258; 
to  Dr.  Rush  on  tyranny  over  mind 
of  man,  259;  to  Wythe  on  democ 
racy  and  education,  266;  to  Cabell 
on  primaries,  281;  to  De  Onis  on 
suffrage  in  Spain,  286;  to  Kosciusko 
on  reading  for  young  men,  288; 
to  Williams  on  farming,  291-92; 
to  Peter  Carr,  289,  293;  to  Roscoe 
on  truth,  294;  to  Cabell  on  the 
wealthy,  295-96;  to  Wyche  on 
county  libraries,  300-1;  to  Cabell 
on  his  own  work  for  the  University, 
302 

Jeffersonian  simplicity,  103,  139, 
225-39;  called  simply  Mr.  Jefferson, 
226;  abolished  forms,  ceremonies, 
and  mysteries,  227-28,  230,  243; 
dislike  of  public  scenes,  228;  at 
White  House,  229;  Curtis'  slur  at, 
231-32;  criticism  of,  233-34;  of 
forms,  235;  in  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment,  235-38 

Jeffersonian  spirit,  The,  216-17 

Jeffersonian  theory,  see  Political  the 
ory,  Jefferson's 

Jefferson's  Ana,  142,  156,  228 

Jefferson's  "Manual,"  170 

Jefferson's  portrait  in  Bull  Moose 
Convention,  54 

Jingoes,  Words  too  wise  for,  198 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  Study  of 
science  of  government  at,  285 


Judges,  Election  of,  101;  Hamilton's 

proposed,  178 
Judiciary,  The,  to  overthrow  popular 

liberty,  179 
Judiciary  Act,  Repeal  of  the  Federal, 

194 

Jurors  to  be  elective,  103 
Jury      system,      recommended      to 

National  Assembly,  65 
Justice  of  the  peace,  The,  6;  to  be 

elective,  102,  103;  federal,  to  hunt 

down  "libellers,"  178 

Kean,  R.  G.  H.,  on  Act  abolishing 

slave  trade,  69-70;  on  the  statute 

of  descents,  72-73 
Kentucky  Resolutions,  The,  96,  145, 

175 
Kentucky,    Transylvania    University 

founded  in,  282 

Kercheval,  Samuel,  Letter  to,  98 
King,  the  English,  Hamilton  on,  147- 

48,  150,  151-52 
King,  Rufus,  Letters  of,  174 
Kingship,  A  common,  the  sole  binding 

tie,  19 

Know-No  thing  movement,  The,  172 
Knowledge  will  govern  ignorance,  280 
Knox,  Henry,  a  monarchist,  144,  145 
Ku  Klux  Klan,  The,  9 

Lafayette,     Jefferson's     advice      to, 

57;     banquet     to,     attended     by 

Jefferson,  296-97 
Land,  subjected  to  the  payment  of 

debts,  91 

Landholders,  Small,  87 
Lands,   Public,   given  for  education, 

303-4 
Language,     Lucidity     of,     69;     law, 

reformed,  70 

Languages,  modern,  Jefferson  cham 
pion  of,  300 
Law  revision  committee  of  Virginia 

Legislature,  70;  report  of,  268 
Laws  and  institutions,  Reverence  for, 

235 

Leadership,  Political,  195 
Lee,    Arthur,    messenger    to    Great 

Britain,  28-29 
Lee,  Henry,  advised  making  Marshall 

president,  162 
Lee,  Richard  Henry,  Dean  of  Virginia 


INDEX 


323 


delegation,  32,  35;  opposed  to  the 
Constitution,  34;  charged  plagi 
arism,  42;  favored  clergy  Bill,  252; 
on  avarice  and  religion,  253 

Lee,  Thomas  L.,  member  of  Law 
revision  committee,  70 

Lees,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 

Legislature  of  Virginia,  see  House  of 
Burgesses 

Legislature,  One,  may  not  infringe 
on  rights  of  another,  19,  21 

Leonard,  Daniel,  on  the  committees 
of  correspondence,  10 

Leopard-Chesapeake  incident,  Jeffer 
son  on  the,  199 

Letters,  Hoards  of,  unpublished,  155 

Lex  talionis,  Protest  against,  69 

Libels,  Hamilton  urged  laws  against, 
177;  Blackstone  on,  178 

Liberties  and  government,  53 

Liberty,  An  empire  for,  201-24,  216, 
221 

Library,  Jefferson's  private,  294 

Library,  Public,  Bill  for  a,  268,  271; 
letter  on,  300-1 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  on  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  39,  75;  a  Jeffer- 
sonian,  54;  Helen  Gardener's  por 
trayal  of,  78;  faith  of,  in  the  people, 
193 

Livingston,  Robert  R.,  member  of 
committee  to  prepare  Declaration 
of  Independence,  33;  Minister  to 
France,  126;  and  the  Louisiana 
purchase,  202-3,  207 

Locke,  John,  "Treatises  of  Govern 
ment"  of,  37,  42 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  on  committees 
of  correspondence,  8;  on  Jefferson, 
104;  on  the  monied  interests,  161-62 

Logos,  The  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  a,  52 

Louis  XVI  dethroned,  115,  118 

Louisiana  Territory,  Acquisition  of, 
140,  214,  242;  story  of,  202-9; 
ceded  by  Spain  to  France,  202; 
negotiations  for,  202-6;  Hart  on 
the,  215;  aims  attained  by  the,  215- 
16;  status  of  citizens  of,  under 
treaty,  218,  220;  Spanish  and 
French  laws  re-enacted  for,  218-19; 
states  carved  out  of,  223 


Louisiana  Treaty  submitted  to  Con 
gress,  131 

Loyalists,  The,  in  New  York,  145-46 
Lyon,  MaKhew,  cast  vote  of  Vermont 
for  Jefferson,  189 

Mabie,  H.  W.,  on  the  University  of 
Virginia,  299,  300 

McKean,  Thomas,  governor  of  Penn 
sylvania,  188 

McKinley,  William,  annexed  distant 
possessions,  217 

Madison,  James,  favored  adoption  of 
Constitution,  34;  reported  Hamil 
ton's  Convention  speech,  147,  148, 
150;  on  powers  of  Federal  Govern 
ment,  210-11;  opposed  clergy  Bill, 
252;  appealed  to  people,  253; 
favored  State  University,  274,  275 

Majority,  A  parliamentary,  160 

Man,  God  and  the,  54;  land  and  the, 
91 

Maryland,  Religious  toleration  estab 
lished  in,  by  the  Roman  Catholics, 
251 

Marshall,  John,  on  Jefferson,  111, 
129-30,  184-85;  mentioned  for 
presidency,  186;  Lee  favored,  192; 
off-the-bench  opinion  of,  194 

Mason,  George,  opposed  to  the 
Constitution,  34;  drew  up  first 
Constitution  of  Virginia,  44;  mem 
ber  of  Law  revision  committee,  70; 
opposed  clergy  Bill,  252,  253 

Mason,  One  Dr.,  on  Jefferson,  259 

Massachusetts  Bay  rejected  aristo 
cracy  as  a  form  of  government,  95 

Massachusetts,  Church  support  com 
pulsory  in,  262 

Mazzei,  Story  of,  against  Jefferson, 
259 

Mellen,  G.  F.,  on  Jefferson  and 
higher  education,  300 

Men  of  the  hour  dangerous  in  a 
crisis,  168 

Mercer,  James,  in  Virginia  Assembly, 
21 

Merriam,  Charles  E.,  "American 
political  theories,"  38;  on  the 
American  working  hypothesis,  46; 
on  the  theocratic  government  in 
New  England,  94-95 

Merwin,      H.     C.,     on     Hamilton's 


324 


INDEX 


"crisis,"  173-74;  on  Jefferson's 
simplicity  of  forms,  235 

Mexico,  3;  Territory  acquired  from, 
220;  states  out  of,  223 

Michigan,  State  University  created 
in,  273,  282 

Milton,  John,  "Defense  of  the  English 
People,"  37;  "License  of  public 
printing,"  245;  "Tenure  of  Kings 
and  Magistrates,"  37 

Ministers  abroad,  Instructions  to  our, 
109 

Ministers,  Foreign,  national  not  dyn 
astic  agents,  118 

Minnesota,  Education  in,  281 

Miranda,  Francesco,  revolutionist, 
174 

Mississippi,  Constitutional  conven 
tions  in,  102 

Mississippi  River,  Right  of  navigation 
of  the,  112-13,  215,  217,  222-23 

Mohawk  Indians,  The,  of  the  Boston 
tea-party,  9 

Monarchical  party,  Existence  of  a, 
154;  Washington  thought,  dead,  160 

Monarchists,  Large  numbers  of,  145 

Monarchy  and  democracy,  Long  con 
test  between  principles  of,  143,  145 

Monied  interests,  Tying  the,  to  the 
government,  161-62;  not  necessary, 
243 

Monocrats,  Many  Whigs  among  the, 
146 

Monroe,  James,  consulted  and  fol 
lowed  Jefferson,  135;  governor  of 
Virginia,  188;  and  Livingston, 
negotiators,  203,  207;  and  State 
University,  274 

Monroe  Doctrine,  First  inkling  of  the, 
133;  expressions  of,  134-35;  full 
born,  136 

Montesquieu,  99,  157 

Montmarin,  Count  de,  on  salt  beef, 
108 

Moral  sense,  Influence  of,  on  govern 
ment,  51 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  on  protecting 
French  nobles,  61 ;  Jefferson  did  not 
confide  in,  62;  character  of,  63; 
instructions  to,  on  French  debt,  115; 
to  Walsh  on  Hamilton,  152,  153; 
to  Ogden,  154;  a  reactionary,  154; 
to  Ogden,  on  Hamilton,  183;  to 


Hamilton  on  election  of  Jefferson, 
184,  186;  favored  Jefferson's  elec 
tion,  189-90;  obeyed  will  of  the 
people,  191;  on  desperate  measures, 
192;  on  acquisition  of  Canada  and 
Louisiana,  214 

Morris,  Robert,  Action  of,  elected 
Jefferson,  189,  190;  obeyed  will  of 
the  people,  191 

Morse,  J.  T.,  on  Jefferson's  reply  to 
North's  "Proposal,"  26-27;  on  the 
Louisiana  purchase,  202 

Napoleon,  Victories  of,  useless  to  us, 

117;    might   have    succeeded,  120; 

purpose    of,    in    selling    Louisiana, 

204-5,  206,  207-8;  ante-dated  the 

Treaty,  208 
National    bank,    Hamilton's    scheme 

for  a,  161-62 
National  sentiment  the  condition  of 

national  existence,  152 
Nations,    Intercourse   of,    under   the 

model  treaty,  109 
Naturalization  of  foreigners,  Bill  for 

the,  91;  law  for,  140 
Necker,  Jacques,  on  the  British  Con 
stitution,  147,  157 
Negro  postmistress,  A,  and  a  closed 

post  office,  18 
Negroes,  Freedom  for,  as  a  race  and 

as   a   few   individuals,    77-78;   the 

American  people  like  free,  155 
Nelson,   Hugh,   presented  Jefferson's 

petition  for  removal  of  duties  on 

books,  305-6 

Nelsons,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 
Neutral  property  in  war-time,  109 
Neutral  ships  and  free  goods,  126 
Neutrality,  Declaration  of,  120;  Jeffer 
son  on,  122-23 
New  England  clergy  hated  Jefferson, 

259,     261-62;     odium    theologicum 

partially  disarmed,  263 
New  England  Magazine,  on  heterodoxy 

of  Adams  and  Jefferson,  245 
New  England,  Monarchical  ideas  in, 

146;  threats  of  dissolution  in,  208-9 
New    Orleans,    Great   Britain    about 

to    seize,    201;    France    and,    203; 

Hart  on  Jefferson's  policy,  203-4; 

Napoleon  and,  204-5 
New   York,    First   movement   for   a 


INDEX 


325 


Continental  Congress  came  from, 
11;  worse  thing  than  primo-geniture 
in,  90;  electoral  vote  of,  for  Jeffer 
son,  181;  Hamilton's  scheme  to 
reverse,  181 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  and  corruption, 
160 

Newspaper  reporters  given  desks  in 
Congress,  305 

Nicholas,  George,  21;  opposed  entail 
Bill,  91;  opposed  Clergy  Bill,  252 

Night  schools  suggested  by  Jefferson, 
289 

North,  Lord,  "Conciliatory  Pro 
posal"  of,  21;  Jefferson's  reply  to, 
21-22,  23,  26,  42 

Northwest  Territory,  Bill  of  1784  for 
government  of,  69,  223;  slavery 
excluded  from  the,  76-77 

"Notes  on  Virginia,"  Jefferson's,  28- 
29;  liberal  sentiments  in,  57; 
opposition  to  slavery  in,  74; 
freedom  of  religion,  244,  246; 
Bill  for  religious  freedom  in,  248, 
264;  pirated  edition  of,  in  Paris, 
265;  on  study  of  language,  284 

Nurselings  of  luxury,  89 

Officers  of  the  general   government, 

Protection  of,   from  libel,   177-78; 

superiority   of,   over   the   mass   of 

the  people,  225 

Offices,  Unnecessary,  abolished,  237 
Ohio,    Public   lands    given    for   edu 
cation  in,  303 

Old  Line  Whigs,  The,  29-30 
Oligarchs,  The  Confederate,  80 
Opinion,   An,   punished,   not  an  act, 

18;  source  of,  254;  not  subject  to 

jurisdiction,  255,  264 
Opponents,       political,       Traditional 

courtesy  of,  in  Va.,  90-91 
Oppressions,   A  series  of,   denounced 

in  the  "Summary  View,"  16-17 
Oregon  country,  Claim  on,  secured  by 

Jefferson,  221,  243 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  Hamilton's  letter 

to,  on  war,  179-80 
Otis,  James,  Reference  by  Adams  to 

pamphlet   of,    41-42;    conceived    a 

Federal  Republic  of  Anglo-Saxony, 

224 
Overseers,  school,  Duties  of,  269-70 


Pages,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 

Paine,  Thomas,  Jefferson  kept  promise 
made  to,  259-60 

Parliament,  had  no  right  to  interfere 
in  the  colonies,  21-22;  people  of 
England  in  accord  with,  41 

Parmelee,   Mary  P.,  on  Jefferson,  105 

Parton,  James,  on  Jefferson  in  France, 
64-65;  on  the  model  treaty,  109, 
110;  on  the  change  of  sentiment, 
142,  143;  on  Jefferson's  "family 
soup,"  225;  on  liberty  of  belief, 
263 

Patronage,  Hamilton's  salutary,  178- 
79;  executive,  abolished,  237;  re 
duced,  242 

Peace,  My  passion  is,  196,  199;  our 
reasons  for,  197-98 

Peace-at-almost-any-price  policy,  196; 
wisdom  of,  199,  243 

Penalties,  brutal,  Amelioration  of,  69 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  member  of  Law 
revision  committee,  70;  opposed 
abolishing  entails,  91;  and  primo 
geniture,  92 

Pendletons,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 

Pendulum,  standard  of  measure,  239 

Penn,  Richard,  and  A.  Lee,  reported 
the  King's  reply,  28-29 

Penn,  William,  Definition  of  free 
government,  95 

Pennsylvania,  First  constitution  of, 
48;  division  of,  advised  by  Hamil 
ton,  176;  troops  mobilized  in,  176; 
vote  of,  to  be  thrown  out,  182; 
would  protect  a  convention,  187, 
188 

People,  Jefferson  on  love  for  and 
distrust  of  the,  50-51;  Woodrow 
Wilson  on  the,  50;  Hamilton  dis 
trusted  the,  51;  not  Americans,  125; 
John  Adams  on  the,  143-44; 
"your,  is  a  great  beast,"  153,  158; 
will  of,  must  be  done,  191;  faith 
in  common  sense  of  the,  193 

Petition,  The  right  of,  46 

Philippines,  World-powering  in  the, 
3,  220;  status  of,  211,  212;  of 
people  of,  under  the  treaty,  218; 
no  constitutional  protection  for,  219 

Physical  culture  and  national  defense, 
293-94 

Pickering,  Timothy,  published  Adams' 


326 


INDEX 


criticism  on  the  Declaration,  41, 
42;  letters  of,  155,  174 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  The,  and  the  Puri 
tans,  95 

Pitt,  the  Elder,  see  Chatham 

Plagiarism,  No,  by  Adams  or  Jeffer 
son,  43 

Planter,  The  rich,  and  the  University, 
295-96 

Plumer,  W.,  Letters  of,  155 

Political  theory,  Jefferson's,  Parties 
founded  on,  54;  the  Soul-Politic,  54; 
salient  points  of,  55;  source  of,  55 

Politicians,  conscious  hypocrites,  159, 
193 

Politics,  big,  Divorce  of  big  business 
from,  159 

Porto  Rico  did  not  become  a  part  of 
the  United  States  on  acquisition, 
212;  status  of  people  of,  under 
treaty,  218;  no  constitutional  pro 
tection  for,  219 

Possessions,  distant,  with  alien  popu 
lations,  What  to  do  with,  213; 
annexed  by  McKinley,  217 

Post  office,  under  a  negro  postmistress, 
closed,  18 

Powell,  E.  P.,  on  A  suppressed 
chapter  of  American  history,  143; 
on  Michigan  University,  273;  on 
Jefferson,  274 

Powers,  not  delegated  reserved,  34, 
45-46,  163;  doctrine  of  delegated, 
48-49;  grades  of,  conferred  upon 
government,  55,  97;  state  and 
national,  55;  all,  with  regard  to 
foreign  affairs,  delegated,  209-10 

Preamble  to  Virginia  Constitution, 
Jefferson's,  44,  57,  69;  to  Bill  for 
better  diffusion  of  knowledge,  280 

President,  Rights  of  the,  respecting 
treaties,  132;  term  of  office  of,  165- 
68,  243 

Primogeniture,  Abolition  of,  67,  68, 
74;  result  of,  85;  bill  for,  88,  90; 
fight  for,  90-91 ;  Pendleton  opposed, 
92 

Princeton  University,  277 

Principles  of  the  Revolution,  Reaction 
against  the,  2 

Prisoners  of  war,  Treatment  of,  109-10 

Privileges,  special,  Beneficiaries  of,  60; 
Jefferson  urged  withdrawal  of,  in 


France,     62;     abolished     by     the 
National  Assembly,  64 
Profusion  and  servitude,  103 
Property,  Unequal  division  of,  86-87 
Protective  system,  The,  in  France,  108 
Prussia  denies  expatriation,  15 
Pure  Republic,  Definition  of  a,  95,  98 
Puritans,  early,  Government  of  the, 
theocratic,    94-95;    distinction    be 
tween  and  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  95 

Quakers,  Political  ideas  of  the,  95 
Quincy,  Josiah,  on  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  209 

Rabble,  The,  and  the  aristocracy, 
286-87 

Race  problem,  The,  80;  Jefferson  on 
the,  83;  Lincoln  on  the,  84;  the 
South's  drawback,  89 

Raleigh  Tavern  at  Williamsburg,  10, 
11 

Randall,  H.  S.,  on  committees  of 
safety,  20-21;  on  class  hatred  of 
Jefferson,  70;  on  the  Revolution, 
146;  the  original  Bill  for  religious 
freedom,  249-50 

Randolph,  John,  Letters  of  Jefferson 
to,  27-28;  emancipated  his  slaves, 
76;  on  the  American  reign  of 
terror,  175;  venom  of,  221 

Randolph,  John,  of  Roanoke,  27,  89, 
201 

Randolph,  Peyton,  presented  Jeffer 
son's  resolutions  to  the  Convention, 
14;  asked  Jefferson  to  reply  to 
North's  "Conciliatory  Proposal," 
21 

Randolphs,  The,  of  Virginia,  89 

Reactionaries,  Utterances  of  the, 
143-45 

Reciprocity,  Stimulus  to,  107 

Recodification,  Brevity  and  succinct 
ness  of  the,  71 

Reconstruction,  a  fool's  errand,  3; 
the  mad  saturnalia  of,  83,  177 

Reform,  political,  A  B  C  of,  159 

Regulating  Act,  Impossible  to  execute 
the,  in  Massachusetts,  12 

Religion,  Difference  of  opinion  in, 
244,  245 ;  punishment  under  Virginia 
Act  for  denial  of,  247 

Religious  freedom,  Jefferson's  statute 


INDEX 


327 


of,  67,  67,  68,  70;  results  of,  85; 
first  in  the  world,  245,  246,  247, 
248,  251;  excerpt  from,  249-50; 
passed,  253-54;  amendments  to, 
254-56;  263-64 

''Reply  to  Lord  North's  Conciliatory 
Proposal,"  21-22,  23,  26,  42 

Representation,  Equal,  in  the  legis 
lature,  103 

Republican  government  radically  de 
fective,  152 

Republican  party,  The,  founded  on 
Jefferson's  theory,  54 

Republicanism,  Catholic  principle  of, 
in  recognition  of  governments,  115- 
16 

Republics,  The  lesser,  97,  99-100, 
102-3 

Resolutions  for  Committee  of  inter 
colonial  correspondence,  8;  offered 
in  the  Assembly,  10 

Revenues,  Increase  of  annual,  215 

Revision  work  in  Virginia,  68-70,  85; 
Bill  for  revision  of  the  laws,  88 

Revolution,  The  American,  a  cause 
of  the  French,  56-57 

Revolutionary  intimidation,  12 

Revolutionary  period,  Political  theory 
of  the,  47-49 

Revolutionist,  The,  7-66 

Rhode  Island,  Religious  freedom  in, 
except  for  Catholics,  251 

Right  of  revolution,  47-48 

Right  to  a  thing,  The,  gives  right  to 
means  for  use,  112 

Rights  of  man,  The,  13;  Van  Capellen 
on,  31;  declared  in  the  Roman 
Digest,  38;  the  object  lesson  of, 
in  America,  39;  De  Witt  on,  45; 
business  of  government  to  make, 
more  secure,  50;  letter  to  Weight- 
man  on,  51-52;  the  political  sci 
entists  and,  53-54;  natural,  inalien 
able,  God-given,  55;  authorities 
for,  55-56;  Jefferson  a  forerunner 
of,  57;  un violated,  85;  the  Puritans 
not  enthusiastic  for,  95;  in  Bill  for 
religious  freedom,  250,  256-57;  the 
citizen  should  know  his,  267 

Roman  Catholics  refused  religious 
liberty  in  Rhode  Island,  251; 
established  it  in  Maryland,  251 


Roman   Digest,   The,   expressed   the 

natural  rights  of  man,  38 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  on  Jefferson,  17, 
20,  23,  54,  104;  rebuked  by  both 
parties,  166;  wanted  third  term, 
167;  spirit  of  sedition  laws  under, 
172;  on  "infamous  conduct,"  196, 
199 

Rousseau,  Jefferson  opposed  to  central 
principle  of,  38;  Jefferson  no  disciple 
of,  45;  difference  between  Jefferson 
and  school  of,  49-50;  not  quoted 
as  authority  on  rights,  56 
Rousseau's  "Contrat  social,"  5 
Rowe,  John,  at  Boston  tea-party,  9 
Russia,  Treaty  with,  abrogated,  15-16 
Rutledge,  Edward,  Letter  to,  131 
Rutledge,   John,  on  Jefferson's  elec 
tion,  185 

Sabine,  Lorenzo,  "American  Loyal 
ists,"  145 

Salt  beef,  in  France,  108 

Schools,  Common  and  Grammar,  Bill 
to  establish,  268;  provision  for 
common,  and  overseers,  269-70; 
for  grammar  or  central,  270-71; 
districts  and  Boards  of  overseers, 
270;  duties  of  visitors,  271;  co 
education  in,  271;  primaries,  281 

Schools,  Grammar  or  central,  Land 
and  buildings  for,  270;  promotion 
to,  from  common,  270-71;  from, 
to  University,  271 

Schouler,  James,  on  Jefferson  and 
the  University,  299 

Scientists,  The  political,  and  the 
rights  of  man,  53-54 

Search  and  arrest,  Freedom  from 
unreasonable,  46 

Secession,  Right  of  peaceful,  denied, 
47 

Secretary  of  State,  Jefferson  appoint 
ed,  112;  handicapped  by  Senate's 
right  to  amend  a  treaty,  138 

Sedgwick,  Theodore,  reactionary,  Let 
ters  of,  155 

Sedition  laws  passed,  145;  a  blunder, 
170;  result  of,  171;  failure  of,  242 

Self-extinguishment,  The  right  of,  53 

Self-government,  Capacity  of  Ameri 
can  people  for,  12;  inherent  rights 
of,  13 


328 


INDEX 


Self-government,  Local,  55;  an  apostle 
of,  96-106;  Jefferson  on,  98-99 

Self-preservation,  first  duty  of  a 
nation,  117 

Shays's  Rebellion,  2,  141 

Sheriffs  to  be  elective,  103 

Sherman,  Roger,  member  of  com 
mittee  to  prepare  Declaration  of 
Independence,  33 

Ships  of  war  and  prizes,  French, 
admitted  to  our  ports,  119 

Short,  Mr.  Jefferson's  letter  to,  60-61, 
112,  134 

Sidney,  Algernon,  "Discourses  on 
Government,"  37 

Slave  owners,  Difficulties  of,  78; 
kindliness  and  heroism  of,  79-80 

Slave-trading,  References  to,  stricken 
out  of  Declaration  of  Independence, 
40;  Jefferson  right  about,  41;  Act 
to  abolish,  69,  80 

Slavery,  Jefferson's  opposition  to, 
74-78,  81-83;  efforts  to  prohibit, 
in  all  territories,  76-77;  defence  of, 
a  defence  of  aristocracy,  80-81; 
Jefferson's  words  against,  a  logos, 
82 

Smith,  Adam,  224 

Smith,  Samuel,  denied  claims  of 
Bayard,  189 

Social  contract,  A,  at  the  base  of 
government,  5 

Social  order,  Hamilton's  view  of,  181 

Social  structure,  The,  aristocratic,  88 

Soul-Politic,  The,  within  our  Body- 
Politic,  4,  54;  making  over  the 
American,  281 

Sovereignty  of  the  people,  47 

Spain,  Diplomatic  correspondence 
with,  129;  Holy  Alliance  and  South 
American  colonies  of,  135;  would 
need  to  sell  Florida,  203 

Spanish,  Study  of,  neglected,  284 

Sparks,  Jared,  battled  for  removal 
of  tariff  on  books,  306 

Spanish  milled  dollar,  basis  of  value, 
239 

Speech,  Freedom  of,  46 

Speeches  from  the  throne,  No,  for 
Jefferson,  nor  since,  229 

Spooner  Amendment,  The,  219 

State,  The,  the  safeguard  of  republi 
can  institutions,  96;  a  lesser  re 


public,  97,  99,  102-3;  true  barrier 
of  liberty,  105 

State  Department,  Forms  and  eti 
quette  in  the,  137,  139 

Stephens,  Alexander,  24 

Suffrage  General,  103;  educational 
qualification  for,  286-88 

"Summary  View,"  Jefferson's,  printed 
by  the  Virginia  Convention,  14-15; 
a  mine  for  ideas  and  phrases,  15; 
basis  of  argument  in  the,  15-16; 
forerunner  of  the  Declaration,  16- 
17,  42,  57;  justified  execution  of 
Charles  I,  17;  protest  against 
closing  port  of  Boston,  18-19; 
appeal  to  George  III,  19-20; 
opposition  to  slavery  in  the,  74 

Supreme  Court,  Contradictory  de 
cisions  of  the,  212 

Sweden  and  Norway,  Separation  of, 
47 

Table,  Things  not  of  the  first,  47; 
things  of  the  first,  55;  the  first  and 
second,  defined,  94 

Talleyrand,  offered  Louisiana  to 
Livingston,  203,  215 

Taxes,  Some  old,  abolished,  no  new 
created,  238;  reduced,  242 

Tea,  thrown  overboard  in  Boston,  9; 
House  of  Burgesses  on  purchase  of, 
10;  the  punishment  for,  18 

Teachers,  free  and  untrammelled, 
294-95 

Tennyson  and  Jefferson,  288 

Territory,  acquisition  of,  Early  doc 
trine  of,  210-11;  new  doctrine,  with 
regard  to  the  Philippines  and 
Porto  Rico,  211,  212-14;  a  means, 
not  an  end  to  Jefferson,  216 

Texas,  Public  lands  of,  303 

Theological  Seminaries,  to  be  estab 
lished  by  the  churches,  274 

Ticknor,  George,  Visit  of,  to  Jefferson, 
300 

Tiers  £tat,  Leaders  of  the,  consulted 
Jefferson,  56 

Titles,  Adulatory,  proposed,  226-27 

Titles,  Honorary,  137,  139,  226 

Tories,  Position  of  Revolutionary 
time,  48 

Tourgee,  Albion  W.,  3 

Town-meeting  methods  opposed,  142 


INDEX 


329 


Township  system  in  New  England, 
93;  Jefferson  enamored  with,  96; 
elementary  republics,  97-98;  power 
of,  98;  vital  principle  of  govern 
ment,  98 

Trade  preferences  voluntary,  19-20 

Trade  regulations,  Unbearable,  16 

Transylvania  University,  Causes  of 
failure  of,  282 

Treason,  Jefferson's  act  defining,  68, 
72;  instructions  on,  113 

Treasury  measures,  Hamilton's,  160- 
61 

Treasury  system  Gallatin's  not  Ham 
ilton's,  238 

Treaties,  Interpretation  of,  in  relation 
to  dual  character  of  our  Republic, 
113-14;  Jefferson  wary  of,  199 

Treaties  with  France,  Our,  116-21; 
violation  of,  117,  130 

Treaty  effected  by  Monroe  in  1806 
not  sent  to  Senate,  132 

Treaty  of  Amity  and  Commerce  with 
France,  118-19;  provisions  of, 
violated,  119-20 

Treaty  of  Paris  of  '63,  112 

Treaty  of  1782-83,  112 

Treaty,  The  Model,  108-11 

Treaty,  Right  of  the  Senate  to  amend 
a,  138 

Tucker,  George,  on  desperate  meas 
ures,  192 

Tuition  and  board,  Free,  in  grammar 
schools,  270 

Tyranny,  submission  to,  or  resistance 
by  force,  Jefferson  on,  25-26 

Tyler,  Governor,  Letters  to,  96-97 

Umpirage  of  reason,  The,  for  col 
lisions  of  interest,  198 

Union  for  the  colonies,  A,  effected 
by  the  correspondence  committees, 
8 

Union,  The,  acknowledged  and  em 
phasized  by  Virginia,  22;  right  of  a 
state  to  withdraw  from,  not 
doubted,  120;  must  be  strengthened, 
152-53;  Hamilton's  devotion  to, 
164;  dismemberment  of,  182,  208-9; 
Josiah  Quincy  on  dissolution  of, 
209 

Unit  of  value  scheme,  239 

Unitarianism  of  Jefferson,  257 


United  States,  A  legal  government  of, 
35;  credit  of,  in  Amsterdam,  162 

United  States  Bank,  Stock  of,  sold, 
236 

University,  A  national,  favored  by 
Washington  and  Jefferson,  276-77; 
arguments  against,  277 

University  of  Geneva,  Scheme  to 
transfer  the,  to  Richmond,  303-4 

University  of  Virginia,  Father  of  the, 
67;  laws  for  establishment  of,  69; 
cardinal  features  of,  272;  founded, 
275;  organization  of,  282-83;  no 
school  for  science  of  government  at, 
285;  agriculture,  etc.  at,  289,  290- 
91;  a  gymnasium  for,  293;  the 
Library  and  the  teaching  force, 
294-95;  success  of  the,  295;  Jeffer 
son  on,  295-97;  treated  niggardly 
by  Virginia,  297;  influence  of,  297- 
98;  freedom  at,  298-99;  Schouler 
on,  299;  Mabie  on,  299-300 

University,  Purpose  of  a,  274;  each 
State  should  have  a,  276-77 

Value,  Unit  of,  scheme,  239 

Van  Capellen,  Johan  Derk,  Reply  of, 

to  George  III,  31-32 
Vanity  of  authorship,  Jefferson  had 

no,  24 

Vest,  Senator,  on  Jefferson,  129 
Virginia  convention,  called  to  elect 
delegates  to  Congress,  11;  instruc 
tions  to  members  of  Congress  pre 
sented  to  the,  14-15;  the  first  of 
its  kind,  15;  Dr.  Grigsby  on,  104 
Virginia  Dynasty,  Jealousy  of  the,  261 
Virginia  Resolutions,  The,  145,  175 
Virginia,  Sole  tie  binding,  to  England, 
19;  would  not  desert  her  sister 
colonies,  22;  reply  of,  to  Lord 
North,  20-23,  26;  a  written  consti 
tution  for,  32,  43-44;  instructions 
to  representatives  to  move  inde 
pendence,  32,  35,  43;  efforts  to  stop 
slave  trade  in,  41;  Bill  of  Rights 
and  Constitution  of,  adopted,  43- 
44,  100;  Jefferson's  work  of  recon 
struction  in,  68-70,  85;  recodifi- 
cation  in,  69,  71 ;  emancipation  and 
non-importation  of  slaves  in,  76,  80; 
what  held,  back,  89;  a  State  made 
over,  92-93;  followed  Jefferson,  93; 


330 


INDEX 


constitution  of,  attacked,  104; 
division  of,  advised  by  Hamilton, 
176;  troops  mobilized  in,  176; 
would  protect  a  convention,  187, 
188;  fell  short  of  Jefferson's  ideas, 
289;  citizenship  of,  296;  neglects  her 
University,  297 

Virginia  State  Literary  Fund  Board, 
301 

Visitors,  school,  Duties  of,  271 

Walcott,  Oliver,  pussy-footed  old 
Counter-Revolutionist,  156 

Walker,  Francis,  on  passage  of  sedi 
tion  law,  170;  on  Hamilton's 
philosophy  of  government,  170-71 

Walker,  John,  member  of  House  of 
Burgesses,  13 

Walpole,  Robert,  and  corruption,  158 

War,  Waste  in  preparation  for,  198-99 

Wards,  Counties  to  be  divided  into, 
97-98,  102-3 

Washington,  George,  a  founder,  1; 
on  the  model  treaty,  110;  supported 
Jefferson  against  the  Cabinet,  115, 
124;  criticised,  125;  persuaded 
Jefferson  to  remain  in  Cabinet, 
127,  130;  relations  with  Jefferson, 
128;  idea  of  making,  king,  146;  on  a 
monarchical  form  of  government, 
146-47;  refused  third  term,  166, 
243;  humiliation  of,  in  signing  Jay 
Treaty,  197;  started  us  as  the 
Great  Peace  Nation,  197;  birth 
day  balls  of,  226;  titles  proposed 
for,  226-27;  with  sword  and  cocked 
hat,  227,  229;  favored  Bill  for 
supporting  clergy,  252;  to  Mason, 
on,  252-53;  influenced  Jefferson, 
304 

Washington's  Cabinet,  160 

Watson,  Thomas  E.,  on  democratized 
Virginia,  93;  on  the  work  of  Jeffer 
son,  104;  on  Napoleon's  victories, 
117;  on  Jefferson's  peace  policy, 
199 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  Jefferson,  111, 
129 

Webster,  Sidney,  "The  Two  Treaties 
of  Paris,"  214,  218-19 

Weightman,  Letter  to  Mayor,  51 


West,  Possession  of  the,  a  bond  of 
union,  222-23 

Western  states,  Separation  of  church 
and  state  in,  264;  liberal  to  their 
universities,  297 

Whigs,  The  early,  made  pretense  of 
Jefferson's  theory,  54 

White,  Andrew  D.,  The  six  architects 
of  our  republic,  1;  on  Jefferson, 
1-2,  80;  Jefferson's  opposition  to 
slavery,  81-82 

Wiley's,  Dr.,  interesting  work,  291 

William  and  Mary  College,  Bill  for 
amending  the  Constitution  of,  268; 
never  enacted,  271;  chemistry  at, 
284 

Williams,  Roger,  on  things  not  of  the 
first  table,  47;  stood  for  democracy, 
94;  in  accord  with  Jefferson,  94-95 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  on  those  who  dis 
trust  the  people,  50 

Winship,  A.  E.,  and  R.  W.  Wallace, 
on  the  Louisiana  purchase,  204 

Wirt,  William,  Letter  to,  quoted,  7 

Wisdom,  The  prescient,  of  Jefferson, 
83 

Witchcraft,  Law  against,  in  Virginia, 
265 

Witt,  Cornelius  de,  on  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  45 ;  on  the  authori 
ties  for  rights,  55-56;  on  Jefferson 
in  Paris,  57-58 

Women,  Education  of,  272 

Woods,  the,  Our  beginnings  in,  39 

Woodward,  Judge  A.  B.,  created 
Michigan  University,  273 

Worcester,  Noah,  Jefferson's  letter 
to,  196 

World  democracy  and  world  peace, 
200 

Wythe,  George,  agreed  with  Jefferson, 
13;  member  of  Law  revision  com 
mittee,  70;  set  free  his  slaves,  76; 
shared  Jefferson's  religious  views, 
257 

Yale  University,  277 
Young  men   consulted   Jefferson   on 
their  reading,  287-88 

CHARLES  ALEXANDER  NELSON 


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